


Troilus and Cressida Are Fled

by TempleCloud



Category: The Iliad - Homer, Troilus and Criseyde - Geoffrey Chaucer
Genre: Afterlife, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Werewolf, F/M, Past Underage Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-05
Updated: 2020-06-07
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:40:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 20
Words: 54,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24557074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TempleCloud/pseuds/TempleCloud
Summary: One werewolf changes the course of the Trojan War.  But will this be enough to save Troy?
Relationships: Achilles & Patroclus of Opus (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), Achilles/Briseis | Hippodameia (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), Achilles/Penthesilea (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), patroclus/briseis, troilus/cressida
Kudos: 1





	1. Chapter 1

_The double wrath of Peleus’ son to tell –_

_Divine Achilles, mightiest man at Troy:_

_His sloth, while many heroes fought and fell,_

_And how at last he rode out to destroy,_

_But, though he won, it gave him little joy,_

_Sing, heavenly Muse! I cannot but by you_

_Tell how his feud with Agamemnon grew._

Homer, _The Iliad_

Troilus son of Priam took the ibex-horn bow in one hand, and the arrow in the other. It had a flint arrow-head, not because the Trojans didn’t know how to work metal, but because a flint tip that could flake off into the victim’s wound, leading to infection, could cause more trouble than any amount of metal.

It was Troilus’s last arrow, and he’d been shooting all morning without success. _This is my last chance_ , he told himself, trying to remember all the things you had to do when shooting. Keep the target in sight – check. Fit the arrow to the bowstring – check. Pray to Apollo the god of archery, promising him a rich sacrifice of firstborn lambs – well, there was a war on, and meat was scarce, but perhaps Troilus’s father would let him have a pigeon to sacrifice, if he achieved glory today. Draw the string back until the bow forms a circle – tricky, as Troilus was only ten years old, and trying to fire a man-size bow that he’d borrowed from a friend. This wasn’t at all like playing with his toy bow made from a piece of stick. But he _had_ to prove he was a man. After all, it was _his_ brother Paris’s girlfriend they were fighting over, and Hector and all his other brothers were fighting to defend the city, and if Troilus could only prove he was a hero beyond his years, maybe he could learn to drive a chariot and fight with a spear as well. Everything depended on this moment. Troilus squinted along the arrow, lining it up with the target, pulled it back as far as he could, and let go. The arrow arced through the air, and dived into the dust of the palace garden, just short of the straw-filled sack with a series of rings chalked on it.

The owner of the bow walked over to the sack, moved it a few feet closer, and began collecting the scattered arrows. ‘You’re definitely getting the hang of it,’ he said kindly. ‘Only you need to allow for wind direction. But yep, a bit more practice, and sacks of straw all over the battlefield will be fainting at the sound of your name.’

Troilus laughed. ‘What’s it like shooting – well, things that aren’t sacks of straw?’ he asked. ‘Do you have to ask your friends to put their shields in front of you so that the enemy doesn’t shoot you first?’

‘Uh, not exactly,’ said the archer, whose name was Pandarus son of Lycaon.

‘Have you ever been wounded?’

‘No, well, what I usually do is to hide in a thicket so that the enemy doesn’t charge at me with its horns down, shouting “Baaa!” I used to go hunting for wild goats a lot, you see. That’s how I got this bow, in fact.’

Troilus considered this. ‘How did you catch the goat before you made the bow out of its horns?’

‘I said I was _hunting_ for wild goats, I didn’t say I caught one. But I used to be really good-looking – this was when I was about sixteen or seventeen – and while I was crouching in a thicket waiting to ambush a goat, the god Apollo appeared to me and gave me this beautiful ibex-horn bow with gold string-hooks, and then he asked me to kiss him. And I said no thanks, he wasn’t my type, and he flew into a rage and put a curse on me that no girl I fancied would ever be interested in me, and that’s why I haven’t got a girlfriend.’

‘Who’d want a _girlfriend_?’ snorted Troilus. ‘I’d rather have a bow like this any day. Can I have another go at firing it?’

‘Later. Your mum’s calling you in for lunch now, and anyway I need to get some archery practice in myself. Your brother Hector’s planning to fight the Greeks the day after tomorrow. Go on in and have your lunch, you’re a growing lad, you can’t afford to miss meals.’

Troilus disappeared into the palace, and emerged a few minutes later with a plate of sandwiches. ‘Mum says I can have my lunch outside as long as I’m not a nuisance to you when you’re training,’ he said. ‘D’you want a sandwich?’

‘I’m not hungry, thanks. That’s one thing about being in love: it’s the ultimate slimming diet.’

‘I’m not ever going to fall in love, then,’ said Troilus, helping himself to a sandwich. ‘It’s silly, getting all soppy about girls, the way Paris is about Helen. And that’s why we’re having this war, isn’t it? Because all the Greeks were in love with Helen, so they’ve got into a thousand ships and come to attack us, so you and King Sarpedon of Lycia and all the other Turkish kings have all brought armies to protect us because you think Helen’s pretty too, haven’t you? Hector wants to get married to a lady called Andromache, and she’s nice, but she’s not as pretty as Helen. I don’t think anybody would launch a thousand ships for Andromache. Maybe they’d launch a couple of canoes and a dinghy for her. But when I said that to Hector, he said I was a silly little kid who didn’t know what I was talking about.’

‘Well, you don’t,’ said Pandarus. ‘And you _especially_ don’t know about not offending gods like laughter-loving Aphrodite, and her son Eros. Because if you go round laughing at grown-ups for falling in love, Aphrodite will laugh at _you_ , and say, “In time, the savage bull doth bear the yoke,” and tell Eros to shoot you and make you fall up to your eyebrows in love with someone, so you spend your nights tossing and turning and not being able to sleep, and your days writing love sonnets that you’re too shy to give to the girl you love.’

‘Do you do that?’

‘Of course. It happens to everyone.’

‘Who are you in love with?’

‘“Nay, niver arsk me that, King Priam’s chile. My secret mun go wi’ me to my grave,”’ said Pandarus, in a silly voice, like a crazed old peasant, which made Troilus laugh.

‘It’s not my sister Cassandra, is it? I don’t think she likes you, but maybe she’s just pretending because she’s too shy to tell you she’s in love with you. But she says you’re louche and you’re a bad influence on me and dad shouldn’t be letting you sleep in my bedroom. That’s just what Cassandra says,’ Troilus added hastily. ‘I _like_ sharing my room with you. It’s good when you tell me stories. What does louche mean?’

Pandarus shrugged. ‘I don’t know, maybe “like a wolf” or something? But I like sharing with you, too,’ said Pandarus. ‘It’s like having a brother.’

‘Huh, having _brothers_ isn’t much fun!’ said Troilus. ‘Well, Deiphobus is all right, and Hector’s quite nice for a grown-up, but Paris is a real show-off. And altogether I’ve got forty-nine brothers, and fifty sisters, because my dad’s got loads of girlfriends as well as mum, and they all keep arguing all the time.’

‘I suppose you’re right,’ said Pandarus. ‘There’s an old proverb in Zeleia, where I come from: “A friend loves at all times, and a brother is made for adversity.” So maybe we’re better off being friends and sworn brothers than actual biological brothers.’

‘Have you got any brothers and sisters?’

‘No. I used to have a big sister called Argive, and she was lovely. She used to look after me, and protect me when my father was – well, not quite himself. But then, when I was about your age, she had to come to Troy to marry a Trojan priest – Calchas, the priest of Apollo...’

‘Is he the one who’s always having animals sacrificed so he can look at their insides to find out what’s going to happen? Why did your sister want to marry _him_?’

‘I don’t think she did, really,’ said Pandarus. ‘And she died a few years later, leaving a little girl called Cressida. So I go to stay with them as often as possible, because I’m the only one Cressida has got left on my side of the family, and she’s a nice kid, in spite of having Calchas for a father.’

‘Does Calchas think you’re a bad influence, too?’

‘Probably, but maybe that’s just as well. Personally, I wouldn’t trust Calchas not to desert and go over to the Greeks’ side if he thinks they’re likely to win, but he probably won’t do that if it means I’m going to be responsible for Cressida – or not until she’s grown up. And I wouldn’t want to be responsible, anyway. The whole point of being an uncle is that you can be thoroughly _ir_ responsible.’

And that, Troilus knew, was how things worked, with Pandarus. Nobody knew very much about him: not even why, if he was the son of the king of Zeleia, he hadn’t brought any chariots or horses or soldiers, or even much armour or equipment apart from a bow and a quiver of arrows. Nobody knew why he didn’t rent or buy a house in Troy, as most of the visiting chieftains did. Instead, he lived in the corners of other people’s lives, like a stray cat, getting lunch here, dinner there, and a bed for the night somewhere else. But at any rate, he and Troilus were sworn brothers, and nothing was going to change that.

Now I’ll need to fast-forward the story about nine years. It’s a pity, because I’d like to tell you how Troilus, when he was sixteen, fell heart-over-head in love with Cressida, after her father had deserted Troy; and how Pandarus persuaded Cressida to love Troilus in return, and how they met secretly many times over the next three years. But too many other writers, especially Geoffrey Chaucer, have already told that part of the story much better than I could, so I’ll leave it to your imagination, and take up the story again when Troilus was nineteen and Cressida was nearly twenty, to tell what Chaucer and Shakespeare and the others didn’t know.

It was nearly morning, and the Dawn was beginning to stroke the sky with pink fingers. The morning light shone through Cressida’s bedroom window, and onto the face of the young man asleep beside her. Cressida eased out of bed gently, so as not to disturb him, and began packing her bags. She wouldn’t need much, except a few changes of clothes and a book to read; after all, she’d promised she was only going to be away ten days. And when she came back, she wouldn’t be in a position to carry much with her, so she’d better not take anything too valuable. But maybe she’d better take a few warm winter cloaks, just in case she couldn’t get back for some reason? And it might look suspicious to the Greeks, if she didn’t have any luggage. But...

Troilus rolled over into the empty space in the bed, mumbling an argument to himself in his sleep: ‘Yes, but if Zeus has always seen me losing Cressida, does he see it because it’s going to happen, or is it going to happen because he’s seen it? Only Zeus has to make Destiny happen, because... only Destiny happens to Zeus as well...’

Cressida bent over and kissed him on the forehead. ‘Wake up and stop worrying,’ she said briskly. ‘Probably Zeus has always foreseen you _not_ losing me, because he’s always foreseen me coming back to you after ten days. I’m just going to visit my dad, you know, not going to the Underworld to steal Hades’ guard-dog! Can’t you just trust me?’

‘Course I trust you,’ said Troilus sleepily. ‘Sorry, I was just having a bad dream – about werewolves and sphinxes, and Troy burning. Oh Zeus! It isn’t today you’re going, is it?’

‘Yes, that’s why you came here last night, remember? You were trying to persuade me to elope with you, and I said I didn’t think it was a good idea, and we argued about it and made up, and you stayed the night.’ Cressida threw Troilus’s clothes onto the bed, and began hurriedly getting dressed herself.

‘I still think it’d be better if you _did_ elope with me,’ protested Troilus. ‘Or if we got married.’

‘But if we got married _now_ , when my dad’s summoned me to join him in the Greeks’ camp, everyone would realise we’d been having an affair, and it’d be embarrassing.’

‘I wish we’d got married three years ago,’ said Troilus.

‘Oh, for Aphrodite’s sake!’ exclaimed Cressida, now busy brushing her long, silky hair. ‘We were too young, and we didn’t even know each other then; you’d just caught sight of me once, and had a crush on me. And I didn’t even want to have a boyfriend, let alone get married. I _told_ Pandarus I didn’t mind being friends with a boy, but I didn’t want you to be my boyfriend, and of course he said, “Yes, of course, that’s all I meant – you didn’t think I was trying to help him _seduce_ you, did I? Would I betray my own niece? It’s completely your own decision – only of course if you spurn Troilus, he’ll die of misery and then I’ll commit suicide and it’ll be _all your fault_ – but I don’t want to put any pressure on you...”’

‘I’m sorry about all that,’ said Troilus. ‘It’s my fault for being too shy to tell you how I felt for myself.’

‘Well, it can’t be helped now,’ said Cressida. ‘Anyway, it’s nearly morning: time you went home before your mum notices you’re not there. Do I look all right?’

‘ _All right?_ Cressida, you know you’re perfect, never mind “all right”!’

‘Come on, how could I be perfect? Everyone knows you can’t trust a girl whose eyebrows meet in the middle.’

‘I like it. It makes you look wise, like an owl.’

‘Thank you.’ Cressida wondered what Troilus would do if he found out _why_ you shouldn’t trust someone with joined eyebrows. As long as they only met once a month, usually on moonless nights, she had just about managed to keep the secret, but he was bound to work it out sooner or later. She wasn’t sure whether anyone in Troy knew, apart from Pandarus and her father. A few years ago, Pandarus had told her that a man called Polyphetes was threatening to banish her from Troy and seize her property, so perhaps Polyphetes had known what Cressida was, or perhaps he had just known that she was young, alone and frightened, and the daughter of a deserter.

Or, it occurred to her now, perhaps Polyphetes didn’t really exist, and Pandarus had invented him to frighten her. Pandarus loved making every situation as complicated as possible, so that he’d never just say, ‘Please can you come to dinner at Deiphobus’s house this evening, because Troilus will be there and he really likes you.’ Instead, he’d warn Cressida that some man called Polyphetes was plotting to banish her from Troy and seize her property, and that they needed to come to a meeting at Deiphobus’s house, with Hector and Paris and Helen, to discuss what to do about Polyphetes. And then, when Cressida was there, he’d tell her that Troilus was lying down in Deiphobus’s spare room, because he wasn’t feeling very well, and that it would do him a lot of good if Cressida were to go in and say hello to him. And while the two of them were together, Pandarus would be downstairs, telling the other princes how the wicked Polyphetes was threatening his niece and deserved to be hanged, when all the time he didn’t even know if there was anyone in Troy called Polyphetes. He was completely unprincipled, devious and manipulative, and probably a psychopath, Cressida decided – but all the same, he was family, and he was also her closest friend apart from Troilus. She was going to miss them both while she was away.

He was knocking on the bedroom door now. ‘Are you decent? Can I come in?’

‘Sure.’ Cressida opened the bedroom door, and Pandarus entered with a tray of bread and cheese and a cup of watered wine. ‘I thought you might like – Troilus, what in Zeus’s name are you still here for? It’s nearly light! You don’t want to ruin Cressida’s reputation by letting someone see you leaving her house, do you?’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Troilus contritely. ‘I just wanted to say goodbye.’

‘Understood. But you’d better get home before your parents wake up and realise you’re not there, and start wondering whether you came home at all last night.’

‘Goodbye, darling,’ said Cressida. ‘I expect you’ll have to be there with the other princes to see me off, when they hand me over to the Greeks in exchange for the prisoners-of-war, but remember, _you don’t know me_.’

‘Yes I do. We met at Deiphobus’s house, remember?’

‘Okay, we’ve met once. But it was three years ago, and you’ve more or less forgotten who I am.’ Cressida kissed Troilus one last time, before he could ease the window open and begin climbing down the ivy-encrusted flank of the house. ‘I’ll be back by full moon, I promise. Only ten days to go.’


	2. Chapter 2

Around mid-morning, a Greek king called Diomedes came to bring back the Trojan prisoners, including King Priam’s wisest advisor, Antenor, and to lead Cressida to the Greek camp. Troilus came out to welcome the Greek delegation, along with the other sons of King Priam, and managed to stop himself from crying by clenching his teeth and never meeting Cressida’s eyes. He knew he had to trust that she would come back somehow, but he couldn’t help noticing that Diomedes was a very handsome man, and that he seemed to be paying a lot of attention to Cressida, talking to her gently and helping her into his chariot, and inviting her to hang onto him while he drove back to the Greek camp. And, when the Greeks had driven away, Troilus went up to his bedroom, to cry in private.

After Antenor returned, the truce between the Greeks and Trojans continued for another ten days, while Antenor talked to Priam and his sons about what he’d seen in his time in the Greek camp, and tried to talk some sense into Paris and persuade him to give Helen back to Menelaus. Paris sulked for a few days and said Antenor was a selfish old fool who’d forgotten what it was like to be young and in love, and then he offered to give back all the treasure that Helen had brought with her to Troy, but not Helen herself. After a couple more days, he eventually agreed to have a duel with Menelaus and let the winner keep Helen. So in the meantime, there were messengers constantly going to the Greek camp to discuss the latest terms offered for peace, and then sitting around waiting while the Greeks argued about whether to accept the deal or not, and coming back to tell King Priam and his sons and advisors what the Greeks said, and waiting while the Trojans argued about it, but at least nobody was killing anybody.

Troilus didn’t take much part in the discussions. He’d never been interested in politics, and was much better at fighting than negotiating peace terms. He was a good soldier, everyone agreed, except for the rare occasions when he was seized with suicidal despair, and would plunge into the heat of battle without caring whether he lived or died, randomly swinging his sword at anyone around him, and somehow still managing to emerge victorious. But when he stayed calm, he was a strong fighter and a responsible officer. He had been fighting in battle ever since he was a boy, and had been able to shoot further and more accurately than Pandarus by the time he was fourteen. When he was fifteen, he had moved on to driving a war-chariot in the front line of the battle, and then learnt to fight with a sword, and, finally, to throw the heavy war-spear.

But now, as the war seemed to be drawing to a close, it occurred to Troilus that he didn’t know how to be anything except a soldier. He’d never worked as a shepherd, as Paris and the rest of his older brothers had before the war. Kings in those days were supposed to be practical men, who knew how to plough a field, take care of livestock, build a house or a boat, chop firewood, and roast an ox, just as queens and princesses had to know how to weave cloth and how to wash clothes, because otherwise, how could they know whether their servants were getting on with their work properly? But Troilus, in the past nine years, had learnt only two things: how to be a soldier, and how to have a secret love affair. Now, with Cressida gone and the war on hold, all he could do was walk about the city, remembering all the places he had secretly met Cressida, or thought of her, or sat down to write a poem about her.

Finally, the tenth day came, and Troilus and Pandarus went out to wait on the battlements of Troy to look out for Cressida. It was a baking hot day, without a cloud in the sky, and so hot that the air shimmered on the horizon, and they waited all morning and nothing happened. A dozen times, one or other of them would point excitedly at a speck on the horizon, and cry, ‘Look! She’s coming!’ And then the speck would come nearer, and turn out to be a farmer driving a cart-load of food to the city, or a shepherd leading his sheep out to drink, or a deer wandering across the wasteland, or anything else that wasn’t Cressida.

‘Are you sure she’s coming?’ Troilus asked.

‘Don’t be silly, of course she’s coming.’

‘What if her dad won’t let her get away?’

‘She’ll work something out. She’s a bright girl.’ Privately, Pandarus wasn’t at all sure. Cressida wasn’t stupid, but she was extremely cautious, and she tended to leave other people to make the decisions. In the past, Pandarus had usually grown so tired of waiting for either Troilus or Cressida to dare to make the first move, that he had usually made their minds up for them. For example, he might ask Cressida to come and stay overnight at Aeneas’s house because Troilus _wasn’t_ going to be there, oh no, he wasn’t even in town, ‘Come on, would I lie to my own niece?’ 

Then, when Cressida was about ready to settle down and go to sleep, Pandarus had come to her room and told her that Troilus was hiding in the airing-cupboard outside the spare room, because he was sick with worry because he hadn’t had a letter from Cressida since yesterday morning and had heard rumours that she had another boyfriend, a man called Horastes, and of course Cressida _could_ shout for help, but considering Aeneas and his wife and their baby were sleeping in the next room, if she made a noise and they found her with a man in her room it would just be very embarrassing, so she’d better call Troilus in and sort things out with him VERY DISCREETLY AND QUIETLY. So Cressida had let Troilus into her room and asked him, very discreetly and quietly, ‘ARE YOU CRAZY? I DON’T EVEN KNOW ANYONE CALLED HORASTES, WHAT ARE YOU ON ABOUT?’  Troilus had been so confused by this, as he didn’t know anyone called Horastes either, that he’d fainted, and by the time Cressida had managed to revive him, and they’d had a very quiet argument, and cried, and made up, and kissed, Pandarus had slipped away to his own bedroom, and left them to get on with things.

So, one way and another, Troilus and Cressida had had a relationship that, thanks to Pandarus, had been about five times as complicated, seven times as farcical and a dozen times as melodramatic as it needed to be. He _liked_ interfering in his friends’ love lives, and he worked at it with artistry of a bard composing an epic poem, a woman weaving a tapestry, or a smith decorating the surface of a shield with pictures in gold and silver. He shaped the raw material of teenage love into a dramatic structure, and, if the course of true love was running a bit too smooth, he invented enemies and rival lovers and misunderstandings just to make things a bit more interesting. And yet...

Pandarus found himself wondering whether it might have been a better idea, just sometimes, to let Cressida get into the habit of making her own decisions.

‘What if she decides she likes Diomedes, or one of the other Greek kings, more than me?’ asked Troilus. ‘I mean, Diomedes is quite good-looking, isn’t he?’

‘Nonsense, she’s not going to stop loving you. She’ll be here any minute now.’

‘It’s past lunch-time. I expect her dad’s making her stay till after lunch.’

‘Yes, that must be what’s happened,’ said Pandarus reassuringly. ‘So why don’t we go and have our lunch now? Then we can come back and meet her this afternoon.’

So the men left, and returned and waited, and nothing happened all over again all, afternoon. They sat there until the sun set, and the moon rose, full and creamy-gold with a smile on her face, and Troilus said, ‘Pandarus, do you think maybe we counted the days wrong? I mean, did Cressida say she’d come back _on_ the tenth day, or _after_ ten days? She might’ve meant she was coming back tomorrow, mightn’t she?’ 

‘Yes, that’s probably what she meant,’ said Pandarus, trying to sound confident.

‘Or she might’ve meant she’d come back secretly at night, mightn’t she?’

‘Yes, she might be going to do that.’

‘Are you sure she _is_ coming back?’ asked Troilus.

‘Don’t be silly, of course she’s coming back – you might as well worry that the Man In The Moon is going to fall out! Look, we’ve neither of us taken a turn at sentry duty tonight, so we’ll offer to guard the main gate tonight. You take the first watch, from sunset to midnight – I’ll go to your house now and get Queen Hecabe to make a packed supper for you – and then I’ll take over from midnight until dawn, and that way, when Cressida comes, there’ll be one or other of us waiting for her.’

So Troilus took up his position by the main gate, and Pandarus fetched him a knapsack with a cheese sandwich, a honey-cake, grapes, and olives, plus Troilus’s spear and a cloak for when it started to get cold, and then went off to catch a few hours’ sleep. Troilus waited by the gates, and it grew darker and darker, and chillier and chillier, and even when he wrapped his cloak around him it didn’t seem to make much difference. He was starting to feel hungry, too, but he decided to save his food for when he was really ravenous, so instead he paced up and down the battlements, and looked down to the ground to see if Cressida was coming, and then up at the stars. 

There were far more stars then than anyone can see now with our fume-polluted air and bright streetlights, and everyone in those days, from shepherds to scholars and master-mariners, knew the stars as well as we know how to read. People sometimes turned into new stars when they died, and Troilus knew that Castor and Pollux, who were up there between Orion the Hunter and Cancer the Crab, were Queen Helen’s brothers. Over on the other side of the Milky Way, there were Perseus the dragon-slayer, and his girlfriend Andromeda, and Andromeda’s mother Cassiopeia, who had all died only about thirty years earlier. Troilus wondered whether he and Cressida would be turned into stars when they died. If they were, they’d definitely ask the gods to let Pandarus to be one as well, he decided.

By now he was starting to feel that Cressida never would escape from the Greek camp, and that they might both die of longing for each other and be turned into stars a lot sooner than they’d planned. He looked up to the sky, and could see the planet Venus, which he knew was another name for Aphrodite the goddess of love. Troilus wasn’t sure if the planet Venus _was_ Aphrodite, or just belonged to her, but just in case, he looked up to it and cried, ‘Oh, Aphrodite, help me!’ 

Below him, he thought he heard a woman crying, ‘Ah, woe!’

Troilus looked down at once to see if Cressida was there, but there was no woman, only a wolf howling up at the moon. When it saw Troilus, it went down on its front paws as though it was bowing to him, and then looked up and whined, like a dog begging for a biscuit. It looked as lonely and wretched as Troilus felt, and without thinking what he was doing, he reached into his bag, broke a piece off his cheese sandwich, and threw it down. The wolf leapt up and gulped down the food, and then danced around for joy, wagging its tail. After a few minutes, it stopped and gazed up at Troilus again. It was quite dark grey on top and creamy gold underneath, with a beautiful bushy plume of a tail curled over its back, and a dark marking over its eyes that made Troilus think of Cressida’s eyebrows. By now he felt quite sure that she wouldn’t come back, but if he could be kind to any creature, even a wild animal, for her sake, it would make things a bit better. Troilus broke off more bits of his sandwich to throw to the wolf, and then did the same with the honey-cake, and all the time, he talked to the wolf as if it could understand him: ‘Why are you hunting on your own, then? I thought you wolves were pack animals? Haven’t you got a mate to hunt with you? Or maybe you’ve got cubs, and you’re out hunting while your mate looks after them. Or is he dead?’

The wolf sat on its haunches and looked up at him very solemnly. Its look seemed to say, ‘We are the only ones who know what it is to grieve; we are the only ones who love faithfully till death.’ 

When it had finished the honey-cake, it whined hopefully again. 

‘That’s enough, now!’ said Troilus. ‘I’ve got nothing left except grapes and olives, and I’m sure wolves don’t eat fruit. Shoo, be off!’ The wolf dropped its eyes and slunk away into the shadows with its tail between its legs. When it had gone, Troilus realised how stupid he’d been to encourage wolves to come near the city gates. He knew he should have thrown his spear at the animal instead of feeding it, but, all the same, he was glad he hadn’t. He ate the olives and the grapes, but they left him feeling even hungrier than before. He paced up and down the battlements and wondered if the wolf would come back, but it didn’t. 

At midnight, Pandarus came with his bow and arrows to take over guard duty. ‘Have you seen anything?’ he asked.

‘No, nothing,’ said Troilus.

‘Are there any animals about? Lions or anything?’

‘No, wild animals don’t come this near the city.’ Troilus wondered whether he should mention the wolf, but Pandarus would only laugh at him if he knew what had happened. He picked up his spear, and walked briskly home to bed, trying to walk the cold out of his feet and the misery out of his heart.

He tried to sleep, but he couldn’t clear his mind. He kept thinking about Cressida, and about Diomedes, and about Calchas, and about the wolf. What if Cressida couldn’t escape from the camp? What if she did escape, and when she was nearing Troy the wolf came back and killed her? What if Cressida didn’t come to Troy, and the wolf came back, trusting in the kindness of humans, and Pandarus shot it, when it didn’t mean any harm and was just hoping to beg some more scraps? What if Cressida fell in love with Diomedes? His thoughts went on tumbling over and over in his brain, and he couldn’t relax for a moment, until an hour or so before dawn, when he was beginning to doze off, when Pandarus bounded into his room and shook him awake, and whispered, ‘Get up! You’ve got to come to Cressida’s house, now!’

Troilus sat up and put on his tunic, and fumbled to lace up his sandals in the dark. ‘Is she back?’ he asked.

‘Not now, but she will be at dawn. But there’s something I’ve got to tell you before she comes back, and if we go to her house we don’t have to worry about your family hearing. Now get a move on!’

Troilus was feeling sick with tiredness and excitement at once, and a bit weak with hunger, but he staggered to his feet and put his cloak on, and made his way out. At the door, he nearly tripped over a dog – or a wolf – no, Troilus realised now, it was just a dog, but he could see why he’d mistaken it for a wolf when he’d seen it dancing about in the moonlight. It was the most wolfish looking dog he had ever seen, but it was obviously very well-trained, and when it saw him and Pandarus, it stood up and followed them. But then, it was years since Troilus had seen a dog at all. When the city had been under siege and the farmers hadn’t been able to bring food in, the Trojans had had to eat all their dogs just to stay alive. ‘I didn’t know you had a dog,’ he said. ‘When did you get it?’

‘Oh, I’ve had her for years. Her mother died when she was a pup, so I’ve been looking after her.’

‘But where’ve you been keeping her? I’ve never seen you with a dog before.’

‘Well, no, I’ve had to keep her secret,’ said Pandarus. ‘Actually, I was wondering if I could ask a great favour of you. You know how much I’ve helped you over the years, so will you promise to do something for me in return? It’s something very difficult, and I wouldn’t ask you if you weren’t my best friend, but you’re the only one I can trust.’

‘Yes, of course. Whatever it is, I’ll do it, I promise. What is it?’

‘Wait,’ said Pandarus. ‘Wait until we’re in Cressida’s house, and I’ll tell you.’

When they were inside, the two men sat down, and the dog curled up at their feet. And then Pandarus said, ‘Troilus, you know how the people in this town just think of dogs as a meal running about on four paws. And this one is part wolf anyway, so they’ll never trust her. I could give them my word of honour that she’s the gentlest creature alive and would never bite anyone, but they wouldn’t trust anything I said, and, frankly, I can’t blame them. I mean, I’ve always been a bit inclined to embroider the truth a bit, and if I was someone else, I wouldn’t trust me. So, this is what I want you to do, and it’s the hardest thing any hero could do. I don’t know if I should ask you, but you’re the only hope I’ve got.’

‘I don’t care how hard it is,’ said Troilus. ‘I’ll do it.’

‘I’m going to give you my pet, and I want you to promise that you’ll steal away into the countryside with her, and protect her. Cressida will be here at dawn, and I need you to leave then with her. Forget about protecting the city: Hector and the others can do that, and from now on I’ll do my fair share of the fighting, instead of skiving off. But only you can protect my niece, and only you can protect my dog.’

Troilus didn’t know what to say. He wanted to protect Cressida, and he knew he mustn’t break his promise, but he wasn’t sure how abandoning a whole city for the sake of one woman and a dog could be right. ‘But you can’t just give a wolf away!’ he protested. ‘They’re not like ordinary dogs; they’ll only ever be loyal to the master who’s trained them since they were cubs. This one’s got to be at least two years old; she’ll never accept me as an owner now.’

‘No, of course she won’t! Who said anything about being her owner? She’s her own animal, and she’ll never obey you. But she’ll be a loyal friend to you, and wouldn’t you rather have a friend than a slave? If you don’t believe me, you can ask Cressida when she arrives. But until she’s here, let me tell you a story.’

And with that, he began to tell the strangest story that Troilus had ever heard.


	3. Chapter 3

These days, the first lesson children learn is never to talk to strangers, but in the age of heroes it was very different. Back then, the same word meant ‘stranger’ and ‘foreigner’ and ‘guest’ and ‘host’, because, if a stranger was travelling through your village, you invited him to stay with you, and he’d become your guest-friend and might invite you to stay with him if you were ever passing through his country, and then your families would be bound by friendship forever. Even during the Trojan War, when Diomedes was fighting against a Trojan soldier called Glaucos, and discovered that his grandfather had been host-friend to Glaucos’s grandfather, they made a pact of friendship in the middle of the battle and swore never to harm each other, and swapped suits of armour to seal it. That’s how strong the law of guest-friendship was; everyone knew that kindness to strangers was sacred to Zeus, and many people even believed that the gods themselves used to visit Earth disguised as humans, to test our hospitality.

However (as Pandarus explained to Troilus now), his father, King Lycaon of Zeleia, didn’t believe any of it. He didn’t believe the gods cared how humans treated each other, and he certainly didn’t think they’d go round disguised as humans. As far as he was concerned, the whole business of guest-friendship was just a rumour put about by tramps in order to get handouts. But he couldn’t convince his family or his friends and neighbours that they shouldn’t be generous to every stranger, just in case. So, one day, when two vagabonds, an old man and a teenage boy, came up the road, looking for a bed for the night, Lycaon decided to prove that the gods didn’t know or care what was going on. 

He pretended to make the wanderers very welcome, asked them to come into his living-room, sit down and have some spiced wine, and chat to his wife Leonora and his little daughter Argive, while he got dinner ready. He gave the cook, whose name was Agnes, and all the other house-servants, the day off and said they could go to out to the countryside, to the festival of Pan the god of shepherds, because, as he had such distinguished guests, he was going to cook dinner himself this evening. And he told all the workers on his farm that they could go as well, except Philip the shepherd, whom he asked to stay with him a little while to help him choose a suitable animal to slaughter for dinner, but he promised to send Philip on his way soon.

The two travellers were glad to take off their rucksacks and their sandals and sit down for a bit. The old man chatted with Queen Leonora, while his son knelt down on the floor to play with Argive, and helped her build a castle out of wooden blocks and showed her how to make toy frogs out of pomegranate peel, and he was just about to agree to a game of hide-and-seek when Lycaon came in to tell them that dinner was ready.

They began the meal with a cheese salad, which they all agreed was excellent, apart from Argive, who refused to eat it because it had olives in, until the Queen made her a cheese sandwich instead. When they’d finished the starter, King Lycaon left the table and came back with five platefuls of roasted meat and gravy. But, before anyone had eaten a mouthful, the old man stared at what was in front of him, and for a moment his face went very pale, and then he stood up, stared at Lycaon, and demanded, ‘How – dare – you? If you had no respect for the gods or the law of guest-friendship, did you have none even for your own shepherd?’

At that moment, Agnes the cook, who happened to be Philip’s wife, came into the dining-room, bobbed a quick curtsey, and said, ‘I’m sorry to disturb your Majesty, but do you know what’s become of my Philip? I know he was helping you choose a beast for dinner, but that was three hours ago, and I haven’t seen him since. You don’t know where he might be, do you?’

The old man held out his plate, and said, ‘ _There_ is your husband! The rest of him is in the oven, because this – _creature_ you call a king murdered him to test whether the gods see what happens. His wife and child knew nothing of it, and he made sure there was no-one else around to see. Do you deny this?’ he asked Lycaon.

Lycaon held his head high. ‘Don’t I have the right to do as I like with my own peasants?’ he snorted. ‘The gods set me over them, and, just as the gods have the right to do what they like with kings, kings have the right to do what they like with commoners, and commoners have the right to do what they like with beasts. Isn’t that how it has always been?’

So the old man nodded, and said, ‘As you wish!’ And with that he pointed at Lycaon and turned him into a wolf. Agnes picked up the carving-knife and plunged forward to try to kill the wolf, but it ran out of the open door into the hall, out of the palace, out of the farm, and away into the woods. Little Argive, who didn’t understand what was going on, burst into tears, and Leonora and Agnes were very pale and shaking with fear, as they realised that the old man was Zeus and his son was Hermes the god of travellers.

Eventually, when Leonora could manage to speak again, she said, ‘Sirs – I – I don’t know why my husband did what he did, but – is there – is there any way we can put things right? Could you raise Agnes’s husband, and forgive mine?’

‘Don’t pray to me,’ said Zeus coldly. ‘I’m the god of justice, and the god of hospitality. Your husband deserves his sentence.’

Agnes tugged at Hermes’ sleeve. ‘Did my daddy really kill Philip?’ she asked, incredulously. ‘Can’t you make him come back to life, if we pray to you?’

Hermes shook his head. ‘No, don’t pray to me. You’ve got to bury Philip, so that I can take his soul to the next world, otherwise he’ll have to be a ghost.’ And with that, the two Olympians vanished.

When the gods had gone, Leonora and Agnes collected what was left of Philip’s poor roasted body, and buried it in a tomb fit for a king. Leonora was determined to be honest about what had happened, so she had a tablet carved describing how Philip had been murdered by Lycaon, and how the gods had turned Lycaon into a wolf, and even hired a sculptor to carve a frieze showing the story, because most ordinary people in Zeleia couldn’t read.

The people let Leonora go on being queen, because they knew that what her husband had done wasn’t her fault, but a lot of the palace servants and the workers on Lycaon’s farm left the place, and so Leonora had to sell off most of the animals to get the farm down to a size that those who decided to stay could manage. One of the few servants who did stay was Agnes, because she felt sorry for Leonora and Argive, and, as the years went on, she became their closest friend. She looked after Argive whenever Leonora was busy, and taught her about Pan, who was the god of shepherds and sheep, but also the god of wild animals. Argive learned to pray to Pan, both for Philip in the underworld, and for Lycaon, that Pan would help him learn to be a good wolf, and not to attack shepherds or their sheep.

Lycaon certainly needed her prayers, because he found being a wolf very hard to get used to. He didn’t know how to kill a deer on his own, and at first he was too proud to hunt together with other wolves, or to eat things like rats and rabbits that he could catch on his own. He tried to steal lambs, and the shepherds threw stones at him; and he tried to get into hen-houses, and the guard-dogs came and bit him; and he tried to chase children, but they climbed up trees and called for help, and their parents came out and threw spears at him. 

So Lycaon limped around, growing more and more bruised, and thinner and thinner, and in the end he decided that he couldn’t survive on his own, and needed a pack to hunt for him. After all, he thought, he was a king, and if he could tell humans what to do, he could certainly tell wolves what to do. So he went up to the next wolf he met, and said, ‘I’m your pack leader.’ 

The other wolf laughed at him. ‘Come off it, mate!’ he said. ‘Stop putting on airs, and I might let you have the leftovers of yesterday’s supper.’

‘I don’t eat _leftovers_!’ spat Lycaon. ‘As of now, I’m your new pack leader, and if you don’t kill me a juicy stag, I’ll kill you.’

‘Come on, don’t be an idiot all your life,’ said the other wolf. ‘I’m bigger than you, I’m in better condition than you, and if I haven’t got more experience of fighting than you, I’m quite sure I’ve got a lot more experience of _winning_ fights. Do you really want to fight someone with teeth this big?’

Lycaon didn’t really want to, but he didn’t want to lose face, so he screamed, ‘ _Yes_ , you coward!’ and leapt at the other wolf’s throat. It knocked him over, nipped him on the muzzle as though it was punishing a disobedient cub, and said, ‘Want to have second thoughts?’

Lycaon said, ‘Right, that _does_ it! I’ll rip your throat out!’ But before he could get any further, he fell over, because the other wolf had crunched right through one of his hind legs, and broken the bone. He collapsed, whimpering with pain, and cried, ‘All right, all right, I submit! You’re the pack leader, I’m just a miserable, cringing dog, and you have the power to let me live or kill me, as you choose! I am your slave!’

The other wolf laughed and said, ‘Well, I don’t see that there’s anything to be gained from killing you. Now, as I said, we’ve got the remains of an old goat, and you’re welcome to help eat it, if you don’t try any more silly stuff. It’s about a mile away; are you well enough to hobble over to the carcass, or do you need me to bring you a bone?’

‘No – no,’ whimpered Lycaon, ‘I can make it on three legs, if your pack won’t be too offended by the sight of me…’

‘Well, it’s not exactly a _pack_ at the moment; it’s just me and the wife these days, and three cubs who are too small to help much with the hunting. My brother used to hunt with us, but he’s left to get married. My wife gets a bit snappy if anyone comes near the cubs, but if you behave yourself I don’t think she’ll give you a hard time; she’s always had a soft spot for hopeless cases. Still, you might make a halfway decent hunter once your paw’s healed. Come along and meet the gang.’

So Lycaon joined the wolf-pack as its lowliest member, and he learned to help hunt for deer, and to guard the cubs, and not to do anything that might offend the wolves or seem like a threat. As the cubs grew up, some of them left to get married and have families of their own, and others stayed to help catch food for their younger brothers and sisters. They never fought their parents for the right to be pack leader, but obeyed them because they loved and respected them. Sometimes the pack grew larger, sometimes it grew smaller, but Lycaon was always the lowest-ranking member, and sometimes he suspected that he wasn’t so much a member of the pack as a family pet, but he felt so grateful to his adoptive family that he didn’t really mind. 

He was always the last to eat of the kill, when there wasn’t much left except bones and gristle, and at first he asked the pack leader why they didn’t simply kill more deer, so that there would be enough prime venison steak for everyone. But the other wolves just laughed at him, and asked him how many deer he thought would be left if they ate only the juiciest bits of meat and abandoned the rest. And when he asked why they didn’t eat the youngest, fittest deer, but only those that were slow because they were old or lame, they laughed at him even more, and said, ‘Because we can _catch_ the slow ones, dummy!’ But they were generally kind to him, and, although they nipped him if he tried to take a piece of meat before the others had quite finished, they never really hurt him if he behaved himself. When Lycaon remembered how he had murdered Philip, who had never wronged him, and thought how kind the pack leader was to him even though he had behaved so arrogantly, he felt thoroughly ashamed of himself. But, more and more often as time went on, he didn’t think about anything in particular, even about being a wolf. He just got on with being one.

In the meantime, Argive was busy growing up, and worrying about her father, and about her mother missing her father. Finally, when seven years had passed, and she was eleven, one moonlit night, when she was alone in her bedroom, she prayed to Pan, ‘Sir, if someone has to be a wolf, couldn’t it be me some of the time, so that my dad could be human sometimes? I’m sure he’s learnt his lesson by now, and my mum would love to have him back.’ And when she’d finished praying, she heard a reed-pipe playing, a long way off in the hills, and she felt quite sure that Pan had heard her prayer.

Towards lunch-time the next day, Lycaon came back to the palace, human, thin and dirty and with quite a collection of scars, and wearing nothing except a ragged old bed-sheet that he’d stolen off somebody’s washing-line when he realized he was turning back into a naked man. Apart from that, he looked much the same as he had before, except that now his eyebrows joined in a letter M, for Murderer and Monster. Anyway, Leonora washed him and brought him fresh clothes, and made him eat a good meal and then go to bed, which he was more than happy to do, as he’d got used to hunting by night and sleeping by day, and it was well past his bed-time. 

By the next morning, everyone in Zeleia had heard the news, and there was a crowd of people outside the palace, demanding to know why a murderer who had been cursed by the gods was allowed back into the palace, and whether he would be allowed to go back to being king or not. Leonora urged Lycaon to wait inside while she tried to talk to the people and calm them down, but Lycaon asked her to let him go out to meet his fate. And so he went out, unarmed, with his head slightly bowed, and his voice was gentle as he said, ‘I think there’s only one person who can settle this, and that’s the wife of the man I murdered. Please will someone go in and ask for Agnes?’ So someone in the crowd who knew Agnes went into the palace to fetch her and brought her out, and Lycaon looked her in the eye and said, ‘Agnes, you and your husband Philip were the ones I wronged, and you have the right to judge me. I’m truly sorry that I murdered your husband, and there is nothing to excuse what I did. You know that I’ve been a wolf for these past seven years, but, now that I’m a man again, what should they do with me? Should I be killed, or just deposed from power? Should I be allowed to go on living in this palace, or should I be sent away? And, if I’m sent away, should my wife and daughter go with me, or not?’

Agnes looked him up and down, and for a long time she was silent. Finally she said, ‘Killing you wouldn’t bring Philip back, and I think you’ve been punished enough. As for staying in this palace – well, I daresay we’ve had plenty of kings in the past who’ve murdered innocent men, but I reckon you must be the first who’s said he was sorry. Your Leonora’s been a good ruler while you were away, but there hasn’t been a day when she and young Argive haven’t missed you, and wanted you back. So go in, put your crown back on, and then go and kneel down and thank the great god Pan for giving you a second chance.’

So the people accepted Lycaon as king again, and he lived in the palace for a month, until the next full moon, when he found himself changing into a wolf once more, and ran out into the farmyard to chase his own chickens. He caused a lot of damage before Leonora and Argive managed to chivvy him into an empty barn and lock the door, where he spent the night whining and growling, but, come morning, he was human again. Soon he and his family got used to tying him up before full moon, and realized that the M on his forehead stood not only for Murderer and Monster, but also for Moonlight, and that the gods made him a werewolf for one night a month to keep him humble. But he was a good husband and father the rest of the time, and soon Leonora had another child, a little boy whom they called Pandarus, or ‘gift from Pan’.

Now, by this time, Agnes had taken a new job elsewhere, as she didn’t feel comfortable living in the same house as the man who had murdered her husband, and Leonora found it hard to get new servants, so Argive did much of the baby-sitting that a nanny would normally have done, when her mother needed a rest. And everyone was so busy with the new baby that they hardly noticed that Argive’s eyebrows were growing into an M, like her father’s, until, when she was thirteen, she began to turn into a werewolf at full moon as well. At first Leonora was frantic with worry at the thought of having to deal with two werewolves at once, but she soon realized that, while Lycaon became very wild at full moon and needed to be chained up, Argive was as tame as any house-dog, and perfectly trustworthy to look after her little brother. After all, plenty of children would rather have a dog than a brother or sister, and so, for Pandarus, having a big sister who was a werewolf was the best of all worlds. He was as much of a nuisance as any other little brother or sister, but Argive never so much as growled at him, even when he pulled her tail. She used to lie in front of the fire to stop him coming too close and burning himself, and once she saved his life when Lycaon had escaped from the barn and tried to break into the house to eat his own son, and Argive had to drive her father outside and fight with him all night. Leonora sometimes thought that, if Lycaon’s M stood for ‘Murderer’, Argive’s must stand for ‘Mother’.


	4. Chapter 4

So [Pandarus continued] Lycaon and his family went on managing, and the children went on growing up, and one day, another visitor, a priest of Apollo called Calchas, invited himself to stay. He saw how beautiful Argive was, and how good at looking after her younger brother, and he discovered that she was good at spinning and weaving, too, and could tell good stories and sing beautifully. All in all, he thought, she would make a good wife, but he guessed from her eyebrows that she must be a werewolf. Still, he thought, she might be house-trained, and he suspected that because she was a werewolf, her parents would be worried about how to find a husband for her, and instead of asking him to pay a bride-price, they’d probably pay him a dowry to take her away. 

So he decided to stay for a bit longer, until full moon, and he saw how, when sunset approached, Lycaon and Argive excused themselves from the table. Lycaon said he was sorry to be anti-social, but on these hot summer nights he found it more comfortable to sleep out in the barn, and Argive said that she wasn’t feeling well and wouldn’t mind going to bed at the same time as Pandarus. And Calchas said yes, of course, he quite understood, and he spent the evening making polite small talk with Leonora. But when he went up to stay in the spare bedroom, he accidentally-on-purpose opened the jar to Pandarus’s bedroom just a few inches, and saw the boy curled up fast asleep on the floor, snuggled against his big furry wolf sister, with moonlight streaming in at the window.

So, in the morning, Calchas went and asked Lycaon for his daughter’s hand in marriage, and, when Lycaon agreed, began negotiating with him over the dowry. When Lycaon had agreed to throw in ten talents of gold, twenty bronze cauldrons, twelve champion chariot-horses and six chariots, and a hundred and forty-four skins of red wine along with his daughter, the two men went to see Argive, and told her that she was getting married and moving to Troy.

They found Argive with her mother and her brother, and when Lycaon told them the news, at first the women didn’t know what to say. It was Pandarus who stood up and said, ‘You’re not taking my sister away! You can’t just buy her with a bride-price, she’s a _person_ , not a cow! Dad, you’re not _really_ going to sell Argive, are you?’

Lycaon laughed and ruffled his son’s hair, and said, ‘Of course not! Bride-prices are old-fashioned, and I don’t need one anyway. No, _I’m_ giving Calchas a dowry with my daughter, so that they can live comfortably in Troy. We’re giving her away because we love her and want her to have a good life, don’t we? Look, Argive is a grown-up now, and we wouldn’t want her to be lonely all her life with no husband. And you’re getting to be a big boy, too, and it’s time you started making friends with boys and girls your own age, instead of playing with your sister all the time. Come on, don’t be selfish.’

Pandarus started to cry, and Leonora snapped, ‘You’re a fine one to tell your little boy not to be selfish! If you’re so keen on what’s best for Argive, why don’t you ask _her_ what she wants, instead of choosing a husband for her?’

Argive wanted to cry, too, but she knew that going against her father would only make life harder for everyone, and for all she knew, Calchas might not be as hard to live with as Lycaon was. So she said, ‘It’s okay, mum. I don’t mind marrying Calchas. Dad’s right, it’s time I found a husband.’ And she bent down and picked Pandarus up and hugged him, and said, ‘Don’t worry, I still love you. And you can come and stay with us in Troy whenever you like. And when I have cubs – children, I mean – you’ll be their uncle, and they’ll need you to help bring them up. Isn’t that grown-up, being an uncle? They’ll want you to play with them and buy them sweets and toys and tell them stories. _And_ you can be a page-boy at my wedding, if you like.’ She smiled back at her mother. ‘Don’t worry, mum. I’ll be fine.’

So Argive got married, and went away to Troy. Pandarus cried a lot when she left, but after she’d gone, he decided to stop being babyish and just concentrate on growing up until he was big enough to go to Troy to visit his sister. It was his eighth birthday not long afterwards, and his parents let him have a big party for all the children in the area, and gave him lots of presents: a toy bow and arrow, a football, a golden lyre, and even a pony. Pandarus decided that his father was right for once, and it _was_ time he started making friends who weren’t Argive, so from then on, he was always inviting other children round to practice with the bow and arrow or ride the pony. As he grew up, he discovered that it was easy to have lots of friends, both men and women, as long as you gave great parties and liked music and dancing and chariot races and archery contests, and that if you made sure you were always in a crowd, you didn’t have to think too much. He knew this was a pretty shallow way of living, but he decided that, if shallow people had much more fun and never suffered from heartache, then shallow was probably a good thing to be. So it was only occasionally that he let himself go to the hills for hunting trips on his own, where he could feel lonely and pensive without anyone finding out.

As soon as he was old enough to drive a chariot and go camping with friends, he began travelling to Troy periodically to visit Argive. She wasn’t very happy in Troy, and Calchas never trusted her when she was a werewolf, and always turned her out of the city on the eve of full moon, to run around the forest until the morning. She’d made a few friends in Troy whom she could trust with her secret, and whenever possible they’d invent a festival to Artemis or Dionysus or Cybele that meant they just _had_ to be camping out at full moon, so that Argive wouldn’t be lonely. But they couldn’t make the same excuse every month without people being suspicious, and on nights when Argive was alone, she couldn’t bear it. She felt herself growing wilder and wilder, just like Lycaon. When she had a baby, a little girl called Cressida, she hoped that Calchas would relent and let her stay in with the baby, but he still ordered her out, and now she was even lonelier, because her friends would have to go and baby-sit while she was out, instead of coming to join her. 

One night, she was so desperate to be at least _near_ humans that she went sniffing around a farmhouse, and the farmer assumed that she had come to try and attack his chickens, and chased her away. The next month, even though she knew it was stupid, she couldn’t stop herself from going there again, and this time she caught her paw in a gin-trap. She knew, with the last of her human brain, that if the farmer caught her now he would kill her for being a wolf, and that if she waited till morning, he would certainly want to know why a respectable woman was crawling about on all-fours and had caught her hand in a trap. So she tore herself free, and limped away as best as she could. She hoped she might have lost only a couple of toes, but when she was back at the gate of Troy and could rest long enough to look at the damage, she could see that the trap had torn off her whole paw.

When the farmer came down to inspect his trap the next morning, he saw a woman’s hand in his trap, and guessed what must have happened. He called all his neighbours together, and they followed the trail of blood through the fields and woods to where a woman was knocking desperately at the gate of Troy with one hand, wearing a tattered dress clumsily pulled on from where she’d left it last night, and with her other wrist bandaged with strips torn from the hem of her dress. None of them had any doubt of what Argive was, and they were even less tolerant than Calchas. They knew that only fire or silver could kill a werewolf, and they certainly couldn’t afford silver, but they knew the king could. The two biggest men grabbed her and held her while a third tied her up, and they held onto her until the doors were opened, and explained to the city watch what had happened, and the watchmen took her to King Priam.

Priam didn’t believe their story at first, and asked Argive to explain to him what had really happened. Had she, perhaps, tripped over in the dark, and caught her hand in the trap? But Argive confirmed that they were telling the truth: yes, she turned into a werewolf every night at full moon, and had been prowling around a farmhouse where she had been before, and the farmer had caught her in his trap. She knew that farmers had the right to defend themselves against wild animals, and, as they couldn’t kill her by the usual means, they needed the use of a silver weapon.

Priam was starting to wonder if she was mad – perhaps she had some female problem that men didn’t want to know about. So he summoned Calchas, and asked him if his wife had a history of mental illness, as she seemed to suffer from the delusion that she was a werewolf. As he knew Calchas was a rather shifty character, he made him swear by Apollo to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Calchas trembled, wondering what was going to happen to Argive and to Cressida and maybe to him as well, but in the end, he said, ‘Your Majesty, she’s not mad, and she’s telling the truth. She _is_ a werewolf, and that’s why I’ve had to put her out at every month at full moon, in case she bit anyone in Troy – maybe even our own child. But if she’s been causing these farmers trouble, I’ll pay compensation for any damage she’s done, and from now on I’ll keep her tied up and muzzled instead.’

Priam said, ‘Well, maybe that would be a better idea. After all, it’s not as if she chose to be a werewolf; presumably she’s become one by being bitten, through no fault of her own. We shouldn’t punish a lady for something she can’t help, should we?’

Argive shook her head again. She said, ‘It’s very kind of you to try and protect me, but no, I haven’t been bitten. I _did_ choose to be a werewolf; I prayed to Pan to make me into one, and he answered my prayer. These men have a right to have me put to death, and only a silver weapon will do it. If you want to be merciful, I’ve just got one favour to ask: let me be killed out in the countryside, not in town, and please don’t let anyone else know what happened to me. You can tell my brother, the next time he comes to visit, but please, tell all my other friends that I ran away and didn’t come back, and tell my daughter the same, when she’s old enough to ask why she hasn’t got a mother. I don’t want her to suffer my shame.’

So King Priam gave the farmers a silver dagger, and they took Argive out to the remotest bit of woodland they could find, and Calchas went home to his baby daughter, and hoped she would never know what her mother was. Pandarus went on coming to visit, and stayed for longer now, because, even though he hated Calchas for letting Argive be killed, he was worried about Cressida. And in between times, he went back home, and worked more heartily than ever at being shallow and popular and the life and soul of the party. When Leonora died, he gave away half the household treasure in prizes for the biggest, most splendid funeral games that had ever been seen in Zeleia. 

A month or so after the funeral, Pandarus went up into the hills with the bow that Apollo had given him, to spend a few days hunting on his own, and to wish there was someone left to call him ‘my brother’. He stayed out for several days, and when he was on his way home, he could hear people shouting, ‘Long live King Epistrophus!’ and ‘Silver, silver, kill all werewolves! Death to all Lycaon’s breed!’ Pandarus crouched in a patch of woodland near the road, and, as he waited, he saw his own chariot rolling along, pulled by his best racehorses, and there, driving the chariot, covered in silver armour, was his cousin Epistrophus, crowned as the new king of Zeleia.

Pandarus knew that he could shoot Epistrophus there and then, and avenge his father’s death, but he could see that there was only one of him and hundreds of Epistrophus’s followers, so that it wouldn’t do him much good. So instead, he stayed absolutely still until the triumphal procession had passed by, and then crept, very softly, back into the heart of the wood. He stayed there until nightfall, and then, like Argive before him, he fled and didn’t rest until he reached the gates of Troy. 

It was easier travelling on foot than in a chariot, because he could creep over the hills and didn’t have to go near the main roads or the towns. When he arrived in Troy, the city gates were all locked, but a sentry on the wall called, ‘Here’s the first one!’ and before long, Prince Hector himself came to unlock the gate, shook Pandarus’s hand and said, ‘Thank the gods you’re here; you’re the first ally to arrive, and the Greeks have been besieging us for months. Now, how many teams of horses do you need stabling?’

Pandarus said, ‘Uh – well, I thought my horses might run short of food and water in a besieged city, so I’ve just brought myself and my bow. Of course, I know how to use a spear if it comes to hand-to-hand fighting, but, really, I’m better at archery. I hope that isn’t a problem?’ And Hector said, ‘No, no, of course not; we can always use archers, and if you ever do feel like fighting nearer the front, I’m sure one of us can find some spare space in his chariot. Now, suppose you come to my father’s house and have dinner?’


	5. Chapter 5

By the time Pandarus had finished explaining to Troilus about his werewolf-family, the sky had faded from black to grey, and it was starting to be rippled with pink, and Cressida-the-werewolf was howling with grief as she heard what had happened to her family. Troilus knelt down on the floor beside her to cuddle her, and Pandarus patted her head and said, ‘I’m sorry, I should’ve told you years ago about your grandparents being dead, but I just didn’t want to upset you. But anyway, you didn’t know them, and, honestly, you haven’t missed anything by not knowing my father. He really, really wasn’t a nice man. But it’s a pity you didn’t have a chance to know my mum, she was wonderful, and she’d have been really proud of you. But anyway, you’ve got me and you’ve got Troilus, and we love you. You be a good girl – shush! Lie down! – good girl, and I’ll find you a nice bone. And is it okay if I make breakfast for Troilus and me?’

Cressida broke off howling for long enough to nod ‘okay’, but then she went back to howling, and Troilus started to cry as well.

‘Don’t be such a baby!’ said Pandarus. ‘You’ve got to have a good breakfast, both of you, because I’ll need to let you out of Troy and be back on guard duty before dawn. And you won’t just be saving yourselves, you’ll be doing vital top-secret reconnaissance work for the whole of Troy. So just eat, and listen, okay?’ And, while Cressida gnawed her bone and Troilus and Pandarus ate their porridge, Pandarus began explaining The Plan.

‘You see, with all these Greeks trying to reduce your city to ashes and rubble, some of the Trojans have noticed it isn’t a good idea to put all their eggs in one basket by having Trojan civilisation concentrated in one place. So a few of us were thinking of branching out, and finding a new colony. Not just people from Troy itself, mind: I’ve got nothing to take me back to Zeleia, and Sarpedon doesn’t plan to go back to Lycia, either. But from Troy itself, several of Antenor’s sons want to come, Achates is happy to come, as long as Aeneas can lead the expedition…’

‘ _Aeneas?_ ’ repeated Troilus. ‘But his dad’s really old and frail these days, and his little boy’s only five, and his wife’s such an idiot that if she walks more than two streets from her house, she gets lost! Aeneas isn’t _really_ thinking of taking them all to a foreign country, is he? And where are they – I mean you – I mean where are we going, anyway?’

‘We haven’t quite decided. I think our best bet would be North Africa – probably Tunisia – but Aeneas thinks we ought to go to Europe. And yeah, I know he’s got quite enough on his plate without trying to found a new nation, but, after all, his mum _is_ the goddess Aphrodite, and you know how ambitious gods can be for their families.’

Troilus nodded. The gods quite often used to have affairs with humans, and so quite a lot of people in those days had at least one divine parent. Achilles, in the Greek camp, was the son of a sea-goddess called Thetis. Because the Greeks were camping by the seashore, she used to come up the beach every few days to visit him, and Achilles never quite knew whether to be proud of being visited by a goddess, or embarrassed that his mum kept dropping in all the time.

‘Anyway,’ Pandarus continued, ‘we haven’t yet sorted out where we’re going, and we can’t really afford to send lots of people away as colonists in the middle of a war. But if one brave prince, and one very brave werewolf, travelled round the Mediterranean, and had a good look at the Middle East and North Africa and southern Europe, they could find a good place, preferably one where the locals are a bit more tolerant of werewolves than they are in Troy or Zeleia, and come back to tell everyone where it was. And in the meantime’ – he added hastily, because Cressida had begun howling with fear when he said the word ‘brave’ –‘it won’t really be very dangerous – safer than staying here, at any rate. After all, most country people are kind and hospitable, and they’ll be a lot more sympathetic to a lad and lass running away to get married – or, better still, a wandering lad with his faithful dog – than to a lot of people with weapons who looked as though they might turn into an invading army.’ He bent down and stroked his niece’s head, and said, ‘You stay a wolf by daylight until you’re well away from Troy, okay? You can turn back into a girl at night, but it’s going to be easier walking on four legs than on two.’

Cressida nodded, but her eyes looked sad. Pandarus tickled her behind the ears, and said, ‘Come on, let’s go to your room and put together a few bits and pieces, shall we? You stay there, Troilus, we won’t be a minute.’ Troilus nodded, and went to the kitchen to wash up the dishes, and, when Pandarus was alone with Cressida, he said to her very softly, ‘I didn’t want to tell you in front of Troilus, but years ago, when he was a child, his sister Cassandra made a prophecy about him. She said that if he lived to the age of twenty, the city of Troy would never fall. Well, he’s nineteen now, and if the Greeks know about the prophecy – which seems pretty likely, with your father defecting to the Greek side – they’ll be going all-out to kill him in the next year. So if you lead him well away from Troy, and keep him safe until his twentieth birthday, you’ll have saved him so that he can save Troy, but if you let him stay here, to go on fighting for the city until he’s killed, you are the falsest whelp alive – false to Troilus, false to me, and false to the whole of Troy. So you will look after him, won’t you?’

Cressida nodded. She had a feeling that maybe there was something wrong in what Pandarus was saying, and maybe Cassandra hadn’t really meant that the city would be safe if Troilus was nowhere near it, but her thoughts were always a bit fuzzier when she was a wolf than when she was human, and in any case, she couldn’t argue when she couldn’t talk. So she chose a dress, a pair of sandals and her favourite necklace, so that she’d have something pretty to put on when it was safe to be human again, and Pandarus tied them up in a bundle, and filled a backpack with bread and biscuits and porridge oats and cheese and dried fruit and nuts. Troilus asked if he shouldn’t be taking some dog-food as well, but Cressida wagged her tail and flashed her sharp teeth, as if to say, ‘Don’t worry about me!’

So they set off in the grey before dawn, and when they reached the gates, Pandarus looked around quickly to check that he couldn’t see anyone, and then unlocked the gates. He hugged Troilus and said, ‘Goodbye; take good care of my niece,’ and bent down and scratched Cressida behind the ears again, and kissed her on her cold, wet nose, and said, ‘Goodbye; take good care of my friend.’ And then the two lovers set off, and Pandarus locked the gate after them, and went back to his position on sentry duty as if nothing had happened. But when they’d gone and he was sure there was nobody around to see him, he cried, because the two people he loved most were going away and he couldn’t be sure if he’d ever see them again.

Meanwhile, in the Greek camp, quite a few of the Greeks had noticed how pretty Cressida was, and were starting to wonder which of them Calchas would give her to. And if this sounds sexist, it is because both the Greeks and the Trojans were sexist. When we read the story of Troilus and Cressida today, we are bound to think, ‘I wouldn’t date a boy because my uncle told me to!’ or ‘If I fancied a girl, I wouldn’t ask her uncle to ask her out for me!’ But for Cressida, it must have seemed a comparatively liberating arrangement. Her own mother had had an arranged marriage to a man she had never seen before, and, as a wife, had been expected to hand all her property over to her husband and promise to obey him forever. Queen Helen, having left her husband for Paris, was now stuck in a besieged city, without much choice over whether she stayed or went back to Greece. 

Under the circumstances, Cressida had decided, long before she met Troilus, that neither marriage nor living with a man looked much fun. If Pandarus had not persuaded her to fall in love with Troilus, I think she might have become a nun serving one of the three virgin goddesses: Hestia the goddess of the hearth, Athene the goddess of wisdom, or Artemis the goddess of virginity. She had considered the idea several times, but had always drawn back, because the idea of not having a man to protect her frightened her so much. The truth was that, although Cressida liked to think of herself as a feminist (or whatever the Trojan equivalent was), she was much more conventional than she liked to admit, and the idea of doing without men terrified her even more than the idea of marriage. So, having an arranged secret love affair had seemed an ideal compromise, allowing her to love, and to be loved and protected by, a gallant prince, without having to promise to obey him.

The Greek men’s attitude to women was, on the whole, even worse. After all, they had been away from their wives for nine years by now, and the only women they were used to seeing in the camp were slaves. From time to time, a Greek king like Diomedes or Achilles would go out with his soldiers and attack one of the smaller towns surrounding Troy, kill all the men, capture the women and children to be slaves, and loot anything valuable in the town, and then they’d share out the treasure and the prisoners among all the Greek kings, with Agamemnon getting first choice because he was the leader. Not long before Cressida came to visit the Greek camp, Achilles had conquered a town called Eëtion, and taken as his share of the prize a beautiful young woman called Briseis, and a silver lyre, but Agamemnon had taken most of the rest of the prisoners and treasure for himself.

So now, the morning that Cressida was running away with her boyfriend, Agamemnon called a meeting of all the Greeks, and announced that the first business they had to settle was the question of finding a husband for Calchas’s daughter. After all, he said, Calchas had been their friend for a good many years, and, since he loved his daughter enough to summon her from the Greek camp, he would certainly want to show his loyalty to the Greek side by giving her to a Greek nobleman as a wife.

Calchas’s stomach churned with fear when he heard this. He knew Cressida hadn’t been in his tent when he woke up that morning, but he couldn’t be sure whether she’d just gone out for the night while she was a werewolf, and would be back in his tent now that it was day, or whether she’d gone for good. Not that it helped either way, of course, because if she _was_ coming back, he would be in trouble if he offered a Greek king a werewolf as a wife, but if she’d gone back to Troy, they could accuse him of being a double agent who was using his daughter to smuggle Greek secrets back to Troy. ‘Uh, she’s – she’s not well at the moment, and – uh – she’s just having a bit of a sleep,’ he stammered. ‘But I’m sure when she’s better she’ll be happy to choose her own husband, because, you know, we Trojans don’t believe in forcing a woman to marry a man she doesn’t love. So, uh, I’ll ask her when she’s up and about again, shall I?’

Agamemnon glared at him. ‘How dare you talk about _Trojan customs_?’ he spat. ‘After the way you ran away from Troy, do you think they’d take you back now? Well, because our Greek civilisation is built on hospitality, you can have three days to change your daughter’s mind. But if you haven’t given her to me by then, I’ll cut your head off.’

At that point Achilles jumped up and shouted at Agamemnon, ‘You drunken old lecher, how dare you talk like that to someone who talks to the gods? Why are you talking about giving Cressida away, as if she was a slave and prisoner like my Briseis? She came to us as our guest, and _if she wants_ to marry one of us, she’s free to choose a husband for herself. But if she’s got a sweetheart back in Troy, then we must let her return to her love. Or do you think that because your brother’s wife decided to leave him for a Trojan, that gives us the right to steal one of their women? And anyway, what’s all this about you wanting to _marry_ her? You’ve got a wife and two children – and you would have three, if you hadn’t murdered your daughter Iphigenia as a sacrifice to Artemis. If that’s what you call Greek civilization, I’d rather fight for the Trojans.’

A lot of people cheered at Achilles’ speech, and a man called Thersites shouted, ‘Good on you! You see, Agamemnon? Even a queer like Achilles knows more about civilization than you do!’ 

Achilles plunged through the crowd to punch Thersites and growl at him, ‘ _I – am – not – gay_ , okay?’

‘Yeah, course not!’ sniggered Thersites. ‘You and Patroclus are just good friends, and you only wear women’s clothes cause they’re more comfortable, right?’

Achilles swung at Thersites again, but he ducked out of the way.

‘ALL RIGHT!’ roared Agamemnon, above the chaos. ‘We’re going to settle this NOW! Talthybius and Eurybates, go to Calchas’s tent and get Cressida, and tell her she’s my wife as of now! I’m divorcing Clytemnaestra now, she can have custody of Orestes and Electra, and the ashes of Iphigenia – whom I did not _murder_ , by the way, if it’s a sacrifice to a god it doesn’t count as murder – and Cressida is my new wife, and we’ll tell Clytemnaestra about it when we get back to Mycaenae. Now get on with it!’ 

Talthybius and Eurybates, Agamemnon’s two heralds, went off to look for Cressida, and in the meantime Patroclus dragged Achilles off Thersites and whispered, ‘Stop beating him up, he’s not worth it,’ and Odysseus, the king of Ithaca, managed to calm the crowds down, and they waited. Things were relatively peaceful for about twenty minutes, until Talthybius and Eurybates returned and said, together (because they’d rehearsed their story on the way back):

‘Your majesty, the lady doth confess

She finds herself most indisposed to rise,

But we suspect that this is but a ruse. 

She seems distract, yet crafty to conceal…’

Agamemnon had heard enough, and broke in: ‘She wasn’t there, was she?’

Talthybius wondered why they had bothered to lie when they were so useless at it, and whom Agamemnon was going to blame, and he hoped desperately that it wouldn’t be them. ‘My liege, I do confess, she was not there,’ he admitted miserably. 

He wondered whether Agamemnon would punish him for lying, but Agamemnon was more interested in shouting at Achilles: ‘This is all _your_ doing, isn’t it? All that guff about letting her choose her own husband was just to give her time to escape. Well, you say she’s not a slave or a prisoner: fine! I’ll take one who _is_! After all, from what I’ve heard, you haven’t got much use for a slave-girl.’

Achilles began to draw his sword to kill Agamemnon there and then, but Patroclus reached out a hand to stop him, and said, ‘Come on; we’d better go and tell Briseis the bad news.’

‘Very well,’ growled Achilles: ‘as I and my followers are no longer part of your army, we’ll leave this assembly. We’ll go to our tents to begin packing our fifty ships to go home, and leave at dawn tomorrow. And I warn you: if you take anything other than Briseis, I’ll kill you. As it is, you can have her, but you’ll have to fight without Patroclus and me and the rest of the Myrmidons.’ And with that he strode off, followed by all his soldiers.


	6. Chapter 6

For all his words, Achilles didn’t begin packing straightaway, because he was too angry and miserable. It wasn’t that he was in love with Briseis, exactly. He’d never really been in love with anyone, even though he had been married once before and he had a son called Neoptolemus who must be nearly grown-up by now. Achilles had scarcely thought of him in the past nine years.

It wasn’t true that Patroclus was Achilles’ boyfriend, though Achilles knew that everyone assumed they were a couple. If they had met when they were a bit older – say, when Achilles was sixteen and Patroclus was twenty-three – maybe they would have fallen in love, but it’s hard to get romantic about someone who has been your adopted brother for as long as you can remember.

Achilles’ parents had got divorced when he was a baby. His mother, Thetis, who was a sea-nymph, had gone back to live in the sea; while his father, King Peleus, who was human, had mostly been _on_ the sea, sailing off to adventures in distant lands. But Patroclus, whom King Peleus had taken in when he was exiled from his own country, had been like an older brother to Achilles, and Phoenix, the man who had been tutor to the two boys, was like a father to both of them – perhaps father and mother and nanny together, as far as Achilles was concerned. They were his closest friends, and the only real family he had.

So Achilles hadn’t thought much about marriage until recently. His first wife had died a long time ago, when Neoptolemus was a little boy, and then the war with Troy had started, and Achilles and Patroclus and Phoenix had gone off to war and left Neoptolemus with his grandfather, old King Peleus. And for most of the past nine years, Achilles had been fairly happy sharing a tent with Patroclus and Phoenix, and hadn’t had time to think about love or marriage. But then, when they had conquered Eëtion, they had captured Briseis, who was crying because her fiancé, her brothers and her parents had all been killed, and Patroclus had patted her on the shoulder and said, ‘Little sister, don’t cry. My brother Achilles is going to marry you, and make you Queen of the Myrmidons. Isn’t that right, Achilles?’ Achilles had thought, ‘Why not? She’s quite pretty,’ and nodded, and from then on Briseis had come to share their tent, and cooked their meals and washed their clothes, and Achilles had begun to think about what it would be like being married to her. 

And now, suddenly, she wasn’t going to be there any more, either as his wife or even as his slave, just because Agamemnon was snatching her just out of spite and to show off because he _could_ snatch other people’s prizes, and it _wasn’t fair_! By the time they were back at the tent, Achilles was sobbing with rage and disappointment. Patroclus knew that the only thing that would calm him down, the only thing that had always cheered Achilles up when he was in a bad mood, ever since they were children, was playing music, so he fetched Achilles’ silver lyre, and said, ‘Could you play _The Lay Of Sir Orfeo_ , please, while I tell Briseis the bad news?’

So Achilles sat down with his lyre, strummed a few chords, tuned it, strummed it again, and began to sing:

‘Orfeo was a king,

In Engelond an high lording.

Orfeo more than any thing

Lovéd the glee of harping.’

It was quite a long ballad, and told about how Sir Orfeo’s wife, Eurydice, had been taken by Hades, and how Sir Orfeo had gone to rescue her. It was strange how singing it made it seem real, even when you knew that every detail in the song was incorrect. Achilles had met the real Orpheus, who had been a friend of King Peleus and a fairly frequent visitor to the palace in Pthia, so he knew that (a) Orpheus was not a king; (b) he came from Thrace in Greece, not from ‘Engelond,’ even supposing that that mythical kingdom of constant rain and clouds really existed; (c) Euydice had died from being bitten by a snake, not from sleeping under an ill-omened tree; and (d) Orpheus had _not_ succeeded in rescuing her from the Underworld, and, in fact, had himself died not long afterwards. And yet, somehow, singing it made Sir Orfeo, the hero of the ballad, seem more solid and believable than Orpheus son of Calliope, whom Achilles only dimly remembered as one of a group of men coming back with his father from the quest for the Golden Fleece. 

By this time, Achilles was so absorbed in making music that he had almost forgotten about Briseis. And meanwhile, Briseis and Patroclus were sitting behind him, by the opening of the tent, Patroclus polishing Achilles’ armour and Briseis darning a rip in Patroclus’s shirt, when the two heralds, Talthybius and Eurybates, arrived.

When they came near Achilles’ tent, they stopped and shuffled their feet for a moment, because they didn’t know what he might do, but they needn’t have worried. Achilles quarrelled with other kings like Agamemnon and Odysseus, and he beat Thersites up because Thersites worked so hard at being annoying that _everyone_ beat him up, but he was far too proud to be rude to mere messengers. So when he saw the heralds approaching, he put the lyre to one side, stood up with his hand held out in greeting, and said:

‘Welcome, Talthybius and Eurybates!

Though well I know that Agamemnon sent you,

I welcome you as guests, and honoured friends.’

Talthybius and Eurybates were a bit taken aback by his politeness, but they managed to stammer out, ‘We thank you as your friends and honoured guests,’ and shook hands with Achilles, who called:

‘Patroclus, will you bring the lady out,

And not delay these gentles, whom I trust

Hence to report me and my cause aright

Before the world, the gods, and Agamemnon,

When I am at my ease within my homeland

And Hector drives the Grecians to their ships.’

‘I’m really sorry,’ Patroclus whispered to Briseis. Briseis shrugged, and trudged miserably forward to let the heralds lead her away. She had no idea what would happen to her. She didn’t really believe that Achilles was going to marry her anyway, but if she had to be a slave, Achilles wasn’t too bad a master, and Patroclus was always kind and gentle to her. She didn’t want to belong to Agamemnon, who had killed his own daughter, and she certainly didn’t want to be brought home to meet Agamemnon’s wife Clytemnaestra, who was a ruthless woman who might well kill a pretty slave girl whom her husband was getting too fond of. Worst of all, she knew that Agamemnon didn’t even particularly want her, Briseis; he was just taking her because Cressida had gone away. Briseis wished she had the courage to walk out of the Greek camp, like Cressida, but she didn’t know how Cressida had managed to slip past the guards, and she was sure that she, Briseis, wouldn’t be able to manage it without being caught.

Once they were out of earshot of Achilles’ tent, Talthybius said to Eurybates, ‘Well, that was easier than I expected!’

Eurybates frowned, and said, ‘Do you think he’s up to something? Kings don’t normally give in that easily.’

At that moment Briseis saw her opportunity: ‘Don’t you realize what Achilles has done?’ she said. ‘He’s charged you two, _on your honour_ , to “report him and his cause aright”. Which means that if the Trojans start getting the upper hand after the Myrmidons have gone home, you’ve got to go to Agamemnon and say, “I told you so.” Now, how do you think Agamemnon is likely to react?’

The two heralds looked at each other, and shuddered. Talthybius said, ‘Badly.’

‘Well, who’s to say the Trojans _will_ get the upper hand?’ asked Eurybates. ‘I mean, we’re only losing fifty ships’ worth of soldiers out of a thousand – there are still quite enough of us to keep the Trojans besieged.’

‘Yes, but you’re losing Achilles,’ persisted Briseis, ‘and he’s not just a strong fighter; he’s the son of a goddess. His mother, Thetis, comes to see him at least once a week, and she’s probably sympathising with him right now, and asking if she can do anything to help. And Thetis may be only a junior sea-nymph, but she’s helped practically every one of the big-name gods at one time or another when they were in danger: Hephaestus the god of blacksmiths, Dionysus the god of wine, even Zeus himself. So, if Achilles asks her to ask all the gods who owe her a favour to help the Trojans win, so as to make Agamemnon sorry he took me, then all the Greeks who’ve stayed with Agamemnon are going to suffer. I think the best thing you two could do is try to be a very long way from Troy when it happens.’

Talthybius, who wasn’t exactly the sharpest arrow in the quiver, said, ‘What, you mean – run away? Where to?’

Eurybates shushed him, and said, in a lower voice, ‘It’s all a matter of guest-friendship. Achilles has made us his guest-friends by giving us Briseis; we owe him a favour; we return the favour by returning Briseis towards him tomorrow before dawn, when he’s preparing to sail home to Pthia; Achilles then owe us a favour; so he’ll be willing to return the favor by letting us come to Pthia with him, and protecting us from Agamemnon, who will be angry with us for taking Briseis back. Do you understand?’

Talthybius frowned. ‘But how are we supposed to report Achilles and his cause aright to Agamemnon when the Trojans start winning, if we’re not at Troy when the Trojans start winning?’ he asked plaintively.

‘We’ll burn that bridge when we come to it,’ said Eurybates. ‘Now, in the meantime, the three of us are going to go to Agamemnon’s tent like good little boys and girl, and not say a word about any of this, okay?’

‘Any of what?’ asked Talthybius.

‘Exactly.’

So that was that in the Greeks’ camp. Meanwhile, Troilus and Cressida made their way south, Cressida still in wolf-form. Werewolves don’t normally choose to stay in wolf-form except at full moon, and Cressida had never had any reason to before, but now she found that she could stay a wolf as long as she concentrated on it, and didn’t absent-mindedly start trying to walk on her hind paws.

They didn’t have a map to follow, and they neither of them knew much geography, but they knew that if they kept the sea on their right-hand side, they would come through the Middle East and eventually reach Africa. They had heard that there were supposed to be strange European countries even further west than Greece, opposite the north coast of Africa, but they weren’t sure whether legendary places like France and Spain and Portugal really existed. They knew slightly more about the geography of Asia, because many of the Trojans’ allies came from far-away towns that spoke foreign languages, and so Troilus and Cressida had grown up hearing the Carians telling stories of the leaf-deep mountain of Phthiron, and the Halizones boasting that Alybe was the first place to work silver, and the Paionians singing folk-songs about the beautiful river of Axios. But they couldn’t have said for sure whether ‘Askania far away’ was further away than ‘Alybe far away’ or ‘Amydon far away’. In any case, for all they knew, the Greeks might have destroyed most of the landmarks by now. They walked all day and passed the burnt ruins of one fair-sized town and several villages, but they didn’t see another person all day. In the evening, Cressida caught a couple of rabbits, and then found a fairly clean river to wash in, and withdrew into a thicket of furze-bushes for long enough to change back into a human and put her clothes on, and by the time she reappeared, Troilus had made a fire and was barbecuing one of the rabbits. They spent the evening together as humans, and then, when they were ready to sleep, Cressida turned back into a wolf, and snuggled her furry body against Troilus’s, to guard him while he slept.

Meanwhile, Troilus’s parents and his sister Cassandra, and Pandarus, were just about to have dinner when Troilus’s brother Deiphobus dropped in to visit, and asked, ‘You haven’t seen Troilus, have you?’ 

‘No, dear, I think he’s staying with Sarpedon for a few days,’ said Queen Hecabe vaguely.

‘No he’s not!’ interrupted King Priam. ‘Troilus and Pandarus got back from Sarpedon’s house the day before yesterday, and they shared guard duty last night. Isn’t that right, Pandarus?’

Pandarus nodded, and Deiphobus asked him, ‘Do _you_ know where Troilus is now? Only Paris has got this duel with Menelaus tomorrow, and Helen is organizing a victory party for him if he wins, and she wanted me to tell Troilus that we’re meeting at seven, at Paris’s house. And you’re welcome to come too, if you want.’

Pandarus grabbed at his cloak with both hands, and tore it with a gesture of intense anguish. ‘It’s all my fault!’ he cried. ‘Troilus asked me to let him out of the city gates before dawn this morning, and he wouldn’t say where he was going. I tried to talk him out of it, or at least let me go with him, but he insisted on going alone, and made me promise I wouldn’t tell anyone, and in the end I thought, well, he’s old enough to look after himself. I don’t know whether he was hoping to attack the Greek camp under cover of darkness, or just spy out the lie of the land, but I really thought he knew enough to do whatever he was planning to do and come home safely! Oh Apollo and Ares protect him!’

At that, King Priam tore his royal robes, and cried, ‘ _Oi moi_ , why does war always take the best men? I had the bravest, noblest sons in the land: the godlike Mestor, Hector the tamer of horses, and lion-hearted Troilus; and now Mestor is no more, and Troilus is no more, and if he goes on being so brave, quite soon Hector will be no more, and I’ll be left with lunatics like Cassandra and wastrels like Deiphobus and Paris, who never think about anything except parties and music and dancing! Get out of my sight, all of you! _Oi moi_ , what have I done to deserve this?’

Pandarus wished he hadn’t been quite so melodramatic. ‘Cheer up, we don’t know that Troilus is dead,’ he said. ‘He’s a terrific fighter, and the Greeks aren’t going to bring him down that easily! But in any case, whether he’s out there defending us and will be home soon, or whether he’s been slain and risen to be a new star in the heavens, he won’t want us to grieve for him until we waste away from hunger. He’d want us to look after ourselves and make sure we get enough to eat.’

So they served dinner, but no-one except Pandarus felt able to eat much. King Priam refused to eat at all, and Cassandra kept chanting, over and over:

‘If Troilus lives to twenty years,

Troy is safe from all her fears.

He’ll find Helen, bring her back

Though the Amazons attack.

Paris then will have his bride,

Menelaus satisfied.

‘Tis too late! The city wall

Is already doomed to fall.’

Nobody took any notice, because nobody ever took any notice of Cassandra. As she was starting to get on their nerves, Queen Hecabe persuaded her to have a hot milky drink and go to bed, and pretty soon after that, everyone else went to bed as well. And in the Greek camp, Briseis, Talthybius and Eurybates lay near the entrance of Agamemnon’s tent, periodically shoving each other to make sure they didn’t fall asleep, and waiting for their chance to escape.


	7. Chapter 7

When Agamemnon woke up the next morning and called to Briseis to bring him breakfast in bed, he wasn’t at all pleased to discover that she’d vanished. He shouted, ‘You stupid guards! Didn’t I tell you to keep close watch on the girl?’ and then realised Talthybius and Eurybates weren’t there either. At this point he realized what had happened, and got dressed in about three seconds flat, grabbed his sword, and got ready to run down to where Achilles’ tent had been, to demand them all back before the Myrmidons set sail. 

He might have made it, if there hadn’t been a crowd of virtually the entire Greek army outside his own tent, with Thersites at the front with a smirk all over his face. ‘Hey, Agamemnon,’ he said, ‘you know you always said we’d got Fate on our side? Said Calchas had promised you the way the birds flew proved it? Well, he’s just decided you can go to the crows. He’s leaving with Achilles now. And me and my comrades here are going to do the same. We’ve spent the last nine years getting hacked to pieces because you want to get your brother’s shop-soiled tart back, and we’re sick of it. The only birds that were telling you to go ahead were the vultures!’

The soldiers cheered, because, while nobody really liked Thersites much, they didn’t like being at war either. But by now the other kings were making their way through the crowd, with Odysseus snarling, ‘One more word out of you, Thersites, and you’re dead!’

‘Oh, come on, the poor chap’s making a fair point,’ said Menelaus. ‘We _were_ wrong to declare war on Troy, and today Paris and I are going to settle the matter in single combat, like decent chaps. Agamemnon, have you got the heralds ready?’

‘ _They’ve_ deserted, too,’ muttered Agamemnon. ‘ _And_ Briseis has gone…’

Thersites sniggered. ‘Funny how that always happens to your family, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘Wonder what Clytemnaestra’s been up to all these years? Hey, did you know Iphigenia wasn’t Agamemnon’s daughter? She…’

But at that point, Odysseus hit him in the stomach so hard that it knocked the breath out of him, ripped off Thersites’ tunic while he was still doubled up in pain, and began thrashing him with Agamemnon’s spiked sceptre. And now the crowds were laughing at Thersites instead of at Agamemnon, and shouting, ‘Tosser!’ When Thersites managed to struggle to his feet and limp away to the ships, nobody wanted to desert with him, but nobody bothered to try and catch him either. 

‘Well, _he’s_ no loss to us!’ said Odysseus, with a shrug. ‘Now, who wants to watch Menelaus beat Paris?’ 

By the time Thersites reached the ships, the Myrmidons were on the point of setting sail. When Achilles saw him coming, he glared at him and snapped, ‘What do _you_ want?’

On any other day, Thersites would have come back with a sarcastic taunt, but right now, he was too tired and miserable to say anything except, ‘Please – take me with you – they all hate me!’

On any other day, Achilles would have cursed Thersites or even killed him, but just now he felt so happy to be leaving Troy that he felt he could be magnanimous to absolutely anyone. He said, ‘Okay, but you’re coming in my ship, where I can keep an eye on you. I’m not having you stirring up sedition behind my back. And if you make one crack about being gay, or cross-dressing, or lumberjacks, or the Young Men’s Pagan Association, you’ll disappear into the wine-dark sea before you can say, “Only joking,” understand?’

‘Yeah, okay,’ mumbled Thersites, as he staggered up the ladder onto the foredeck of the lead ship, where Patroclus cleaned his cuts and bruises and bandaged the worst of them, and found a spare tunic and cloak for him to wear. When everyone was on board, the ships set sail, with Achilles and his household, plus the new arrivals he wasn’t sure he could trust – Thersites, Calchas, and Talthybius and Eurybates – all in the first ship.

But meanwhile, the Greeks and the Trojans were all assembled to watch the duel between Menelaus and Paris. They sacrificed three lambs to seal the truce – a white lamb for Helios the sun-god, a black one for Gaia the Earth-Mother, and a spotted one for Zeus – and then Hector tossed a coin to see who should begin the duel. Paris won the toss, and opened by hurling his spear, but it stuck bang in the centre of Menelaus’s shield, and the point broke off it. Then it was Menelaus’s turn to throw _his_ spear, which went straight through Paris’s shield, pierced his breastplate (which he’d borrowed from Deiphobus, as his own was being repaired that day) and tore his favourite purple silk shirt with the gold embroidery, but didn’t manage to inflict much of a wound. Next, Menelaus brought his sword down on Paris’s helmet – it was a horned helmet, rather like the ones that Viking warriors were buried in – but the blade shattered. 

Menelaus swore under his breath, and lunged in to grab Paris by the helmet and throttle him with the embroidered chin-strap, but the strap broke and the helmet went flying, and by the time Menelaus had picked himself up off the ground and retrieved his spear to try again to attack, Paris seemed to have vanished into thin air. Some say he ran away, but others say that the goddess Aphrodite, seeing that he was losing, picked him up and transported him instantly back to his bedroom. The second explanation might sound fairly improbable, but nobody could explain how he could have run away in front of a hundred thousand Greeks and the same number of Trojans and their allies, without anyone seeing him go – and the Trojans certainly wouldn’t have sheltered him if he’d tried to slip away among them, because they were sick of the war he’d dragged them into. Besides, if he had run, it’s hard to explain how he found himself in his heavily-perfumed bedroom in his palace in the middle of Troy, a good three miles from the battlefield, just a split second after he’d been cowering under Menelaus’s attack, and why he wasn’t even out of breath, but had somehow got rid of his armour and changed into a fresh shirt. 

At any rate, Helen, who had been sitting up by the city gate watching the duel, wasn’t very pleased when Aphrodite suddenly appeared to her, took her by the arm and said, ‘Come on, dearie; your boyfriend’s back in his bed with the pretty patterned quilt, waiting for you, and he’s looking _oh_ so gorgeous! He looks as if he’s just getting ready to go to a party, not at all as if he’s been in a war.’ Helen muttered that Paris was a coward, and that she was an idiot to love him, and that Aphrodite was the cruellest of all the gods to make her love him. But, all the same, she went up to the bedroom, and she had to admit that Paris _was_ fairly gorgeous.

Meanwhile, back on the battlefield, people were standing around and wondering what was going on, and what to do next, and whether this meant Menelaus had won or not. And they might have declared peace there and then, but at that moment Pandarus decided to make up for the years when he had spent more time interfering in his friends’ love lives than riding out to fight. He knew he wasn’t all that great with a spear, but he was very proud of his skill in archery, and, he thought, if he could shoot Menelaus from the middle of the Trojan ranks, _who would know where the arrow had come from?_ They couldn’t track it down to one person – for all they knew, it might have been one of the gods who had miraculously intervened to bring this hateful war to an end – and maybe the gods _were_ working through him, Pandarus, anyway. Maybe assassinating Menelaus was what the gods had wanted him to do all along, which was why they had put it into the minds of Paris and Menelaus to arrange a truce and a duel, and then whisked Paris away. At any rate, it would make Paris and Helen happy, and Pandarus liked them both and wanted them to be happy together. All right, he had sworn to Zeus and the other gods to respect the truce, but, as they said in Troy, ‘Zeus laughs at lovers’ perjuries,’ so probably Zeus would also laugh it off if someone else committed perjury on behalf of two such lovers as Paris and Helen.

Pandarus knew that most people would probably think assassinating Menelaus wasn’t a very nice thing to do. But then, that was because most people didn’t realise that discretion was the better part of valour, and cowardice was the better part of discretion, and treachery was the better part of cowardice, so that only he was able to be valiantly treacherous. He felt rather glad that Troilus wasn’t there to see what he was doing. Troilus was a dear lad, but he really didn’t understand this sort of thing. So, whispering a hasty prayer to Apollo the god of archery, Pandarus son of Lycaon stretched the ox-hide bow-string between the golden string-hooks of his bow, took out a sharp new arrow, pulled back the string until the bow made a circle, took careful aim, and fired…

…And the arrow sang through the air, glanced off the metal belt round Menelaus’s middle, missed his vital organs by several inches, and landed in his thigh.

When Agamemnon saw what had happened, he cried out, ‘ _Oi moi_ , Menelaus, my brother, why did I bring you here, to die at the hands of these treacherous dogs of Trojans? May Zeus crush their city into rubble for their foul murder of you…’

(‘I’m not actually dead,’ muttered Menelaus.)

‘For their foul murder of you, and the shame they’ve brought me, when I return to Greece, defeated, and leave your poor bones to rot in some foreign field, and probably be turned up by some ploughman…’

(‘I’m not even badly hurt,’ Menelaus pointed out.)

‘And when that ploughman jumps up and down on your grave and laughs and says, “Let’s hope all the Greeks’ enterprises fall as flat as that one!” I’ll wish the ground would open and swallow me up. Oh, Menelaus, if only I were dead like you, instead of limping home in disgrace without you!’

Menelaus said, more loudly, ‘For the last time, Agamemnon, I’m OKAY! It’s barely even a scratch!’

Agamemnon said, ‘Oh. Are you? Uh – that’s good, then. Still, arrow-wounds can turn nasty. We’d better get a surgeon to have a look at it.’

So, while Helen was in bed with Paris, and Menelaus’s chariot was carrying him back to his tent for a surgeon to remove the arrow and bandage his wound, the rest of the Greeks and Trojans were charging into battle on their behalf. Pandarus fought hard that day, to make up for lost time. With Menelaus out of action and Achilles nowhere to be seen, he tried to shoot Diomedes, who he guessed had been trying to seduce Cressida; and when he ran out of arrows without having hit him once, he asked Aeneas to let him share his chariot, so that he could fight in the front line. So Aeneas drove while Pandarus fought, until, as Homer tells us in his usual gruesome style:

_He raised and cast his shadowing spear and struck_

_Diomed’s shield. ‘A hit! Clean on the flank!’_

_Cried Pandarus, ‘The gods have given me luck;_

_You won’t last long, but first I’ll have to thank_

_You for the glory.’ ‘No, I wouldn’t bank_

_On that,’ replied Diomedes, ‘but one_

_Of you must glut the war-god, ere we’ve done.’_

_‘I owe my skill in warfare to Apollo,’_

_Said Pandarus, ‘and if we have to wreath_

_Aeneas here, your death will quickly follow...’_

_The spear bit through his nose, flew past his teeth,_

_Cut off his tongue, and sprouted forth beneath._

_He fell; his armour crashed; the horses shied;_

_His soul and strength dissolved; and thus he died._

The armies fought on until evening fell, when the Greeks returned to their camp and the Trojans returned to the city. And just as the gates were about to close, a man came running up, shouting, ‘Urgent news! News for Hector! News for Paris! News for King Priam!’ The guards recognised him as a farmer called Polybetes, who lived about twenty miles from Troy, and quite often used to come to the city, perhaps driving a herd of bullocks to sell, or with a cart full of butter, cheeses and bottles of milk. But now he wasn’t bringing anything to sell, and he wouldn’t rest until he was in King Priam’s palace, with the old king and queen, and with Hector, Deiphobus and Paris. Then he told them the terrible news:

‘Your Majesty, your son Troilus is ensorcelled! A terrible witch who can turn herself from a woman into a wolf and back again has cast a spell on him to make him fall in love with her, so much that he’s run away with her! While I was going out yesterday evening to fetch my cows and drive them in for milking, I saw his Highness out walking, with a wolf beside him, and I might have said, “Good evening, your Highness,” to him, but he looked as if he didn’t want to be recognised, so I walked on as if I hadn’t noticed him. But _then_ , when I was a goodish way off and they must have thought I didn’t see, the wolf, with a dress in its mouth, went into a thicket of furze-bushes, and a few minutes later a young lassie came out! Now, I didn’t say anything, because who knows what a witch like that could do, and anyway I had the cows to milk, but I got a good look at her face, and then I knew who _she_ was, too! I’d know those joined eyebrows anywhere! She was that lass – I can’t remember her name – the daughter of that priest of Apollo who defected to the Greeks, and on her dam’s side I’d reckon she was some kin to the old king of Zeleia, the one that was killed nine years ago, and his son fled, like the flea-bitten dog he was. All that family are a bad lot, but the ones with joined eyebrows are the worst. They’re witches, and the joined eyebrows are the mark of it.’

When Polybetes finished his story, there was a silence, and then King Priam said, ‘Are you trying to tell me the bravest son I ever lost is alive, and a cowardly deserter?’

Polybetes shook his head hard. ‘No, no, it’s not his fault at all. I’m sure he’s possessed by the witch, and doesn’t know what he’s doing. But if one of you was to take a fast horse and a bow with a silver arrow, or else a silver-headed spear, and chase after them and kill the witch – it has to be silver, you see, for nothing else will kill her kind – then her spell’s going to break, and he’ll come back to his senses. That’s why I’ve run all day to tell you. They could be forty miles away by now, but they’re on foot, and with a fast horse you might overtake them in a few days – if the witch doesn’t kill him first.’

‘I don’t know what you’re playing at, Polybetes,’ said Hector, ‘but the lady Cressida was a good friend of all our family. We’ve protected her ever since her father ran away, because Pandarus, her uncle, wasn’t exactly dependable, and she didn’t have any other family. So, yes, Troilus was her friend, and if he’d been in love with her, he’d have asked her to be his wife, just as I’ve married the woman I love. He’d never have dishonoured her by making her his mistress. I don’t know why you’ve come here to blacken both their names, but I can’t forgive this insult.’

‘Hang on!’ interrupted Deiphobus. ‘Didn’t Pandarus tell us, years ago, that someone called Polyphetes was plotting against Cressida? We vowed then that he deserved to be hanged, but he slipped through our hands, and now, when Cressida has been taken to the Greek camp, and poor Pandarus has been killed in battle, you’ve come crawling back with some fairy-tale about werewolves, and you expect us to believe it!’

‘No, my name’s Poly _betes_ ,’ repeated the farmer. ‘And I never wished Calchas’s daughter any harm until I saw what I saw yesterday.’

All this time, King Priam had been wondering what to do. He had promised Argive that he would never betray her secret, but he didn’t want to see Argive’s daughter killed as her mother had been, nor an honest man hanged for telling the truth. And he didn’t like to believe that Troilus had run away, but, if the story _was_ true, then at least Troilus was alive. So, with all the hopes and fears swirling around in his head, all he could think of to say was, ‘Well, nothing’s impossible, but if the lady Cressida _is_ a werewolf, then she can’t help what she is, any more than you could help seeing her. And, really, Deiphobus, I know you and Troilus were very fond of Pandarus, but he wasn’t exactly trustworthy, was he? So maybe we should just...’

‘You’re worse than your sons!’ shouted Polybetes. ‘You _know_ I’m telling the truth, but you won’t do anything about it! Well, I’ll be off, and I hope the gods crush your family and your whole evil city to dust! May Hera, the queen of the gods, curse your city, and may Athene the goddess of wisdom give the Greeks the cunning to conquer it, and Hephaestus the fire-god burn it, and Poseidon the sea-god drown it...’

And Polybetes might have gone on invoking every single god, but suddenly, before Hector or Priam could stop him, Deiphobus drew his sword and chopped the farmer’s head off. For a moment they all stood, too horrified to speak, and then Hector said, ‘You – you’ve killed a _guest_ – an unarmed man...’

But Deiphobus just shook his head impatiently. ‘He wasn’t a guest,’ he said. ‘He’d come here to curse our city and slander our friends when they weren’t here to defend themselves. I’m only sorry I used my sword instead of hanging him.’


	8. Chapter 8

Meanwhile, Troilus and Cressida were stopping for their second evening of camping. It was Cressida’s twentieth birthday, and, as she changed back into a woman again, Troilus began collecting wood to make a campfire. They hadn’t caught any meat today, but he planned to cook up a sweet porridge of dried fruit and nuts. 

Cressida emerged in human form from behind a bush, and tensed. ‘Do you smell that?’ she whispered.

‘What?’ Then Troilus smelled it, too. He hadn’t lit their fire yet, but there was a clear smell of wood-smoke from a fire not far away, mingled with the delicious smell of an ox being roasted whole over the fire. Then they heard a lyre playing, and a voice lifted in song:

‘There once was a ship, and she floated in the sea,

And the name of the ship was _The Golden Vanity_ ,

And we feared she would be taken by the Trojan enemy,

As she floated in the lowland, lowland, lowland,

She floated in the lowland sea.’

Troilus didn’t recognise the voice, as he had only ever heard it giving commands on the battlefield or taunting him and the other Trojans, never singing. But Cressida shivered, and she whispered to him, ‘That’s Achilles.’

‘Don’t worry, I’ll protect you,’ whispered Troilus.

‘Don’t be silly,’ said Cressida. ‘We don’t know how many of them there are, and there are only two of us. Let’s just lie low, and listen.’

So they listened. After Achilles finished his ballad about the gallant cabin-boy who was murdered by his treacherous captain, another man, whom Cressida identified as Achilles’ old tutor Phoenix, began playing the lyre and sang ‘The Foggy, Foggy Dew,’ Patroclus sang ‘Pretty Peggy-O’, and then another man, who didn’t play the lyre at all – perhaps he had never learnt to play an instrument – sang ‘The Honeysuckle And The Bindweed’, and then, without even pausing, went straight into ‘I Am The Very Model Of A Modern Major-General’, and then ‘The Willing Conscript’, and then ‘The High Sheriff Of Hazard’, and was just launching into ‘I Am A Lumberjack And I’m Okay,’ when Achilles growled, ‘That’s _enough_ , Thersites! Eurybates, do you know any songs?’

‘Is this a trick question?’ asked the man called Eurybates.

‘What do you mean?’ asked Achilles, confused.

‘Well, if I say I _can_ play, you’ll probably say it just goes to show that all diplomats play the liar, but if I say I _can’t_ , you’ll say that the man that hath not music in his soul is fit for treasons, plots and stratagems, and if I say that’s not true, you’re going to ask me if I mean I’m too stupid for treasons, plots and stratagems. So if it’s all the same to you, I’d rather just not answer, because if I do I’ll just end up looking stupid.’

Talthybius, the other herald – Troilus recognised his voice easily enough, as he’d often come as an envoy to the Trojans – said shyly, ‘I know one about a falling sparrow,’ and, when Achilles reassured him that that was perfect, exactly what they needed, Talthybius sang it. It was a soft, melancholy piece after Thersites’ comic songs, and, when the sparrow had returned to the dust whence it came, Achilles cried fiercely, ‘Yes! That’s _exactly_ how it is, for every creature from the smallest sparrow to Gilgamesh, the King of Uruk, and his friend Enkidu, the wild man of the forests! Now, who else wants a turn? Calchas? Could you sing us a Trojan song?’

Cressida shivered when she heard her father answer. ‘They’ve tracked me down,’ she whispered. ‘Now what do we do?’

‘I’ll fight for you,’ said Troilus, standing up. ‘If Achilles has brought ten thousand men, I’ll fight every last one of them for your sake, or die in the attempt.’

He strode off towards the camp, with his spear in his hand, his sword by his side, and Cressida running after him, calling, ‘Troilus, _stop!_ You don’t _have_ to fight anyone, I’m twenty now, I can just tell dad I’m going to marry you! _Wait_...’ 

But Troilus took no notice. And so the two of them stumbled into the warm orange glow of firelight together, and Achilles glanced up and said, ‘Hello. Care for some dinner?’

Troilus tightened his grip on his spear and said, ‘I don’t know why you’re hounding Cressida like this, but I’ll fight every one of you for her honour...’

Cressida gulped and tried to look into Calchas’s eyes and said very fast, ‘Dad, this is the man I’m going to marry, and I’m not asking your permission, I’m telling you. Uh, you won’t be too upset, will you? Please?’

Calchas stared at her, wondering what on earth was going on, and at last he said, ‘Cressida?’

Cressida stared back at him, wondering what he was doing there if he hadn’t been tracking her, and said, ‘Dad?’

Achilles roared with laughter. ‘Come on, Calchas, you said yourself she had the right to choose her husband!’ he said. ‘Now, Troilus, put down your spear and come and have some dinner, and sleep by our campfire tonight, and tomorrow you and your lady can decide whether to come with us or go on your way by yourselves.’

‘But we’re your prisoners!’ protested Cressida. ‘The two of us can’t possibly fight all of you, so what choice do we have over where you take us? But if you kill Troilus, I’ll starve myself to death, and if you take him back to Troy alive to demand a ransom from King Priam, how can I live when he’s gone?’

‘Do you think I’d murder my guests?’ snorted Achilles. ‘And I don’t want to go back to Troy any more than you do. I’ve wasted nine years of my life there, afflicting you Trojans when you’d never done me any harm, never knowing how my son was growing up or whether my father was still alive, and all for the sake of Agamemnon and Menelaus – and Agamemnon repaid me by trying to steal my slave-girl! Well, I’ve had enough of the war, just as you have. Tomorrow, all of my Myrmidons who want a rest are sailing back to Pthia, but for myself, I’m planning to sail south in search of stranger adventures in distant lands. You’re welcome to come with me, if it suits you, or to make your way on foot to wherever you’re heading.’

At that point, Patroclus brought huge slices of barbecued beef to Troilus and Cressida, and then cut portions for Achilles, Phoenix, Briseis and himself. And all the others went to help themselves to food, and for a while everyone munched in silence. But after dinner, as they all sat by the fire, Achilles told the story of proud Gilgamesh, the King of Uruk, and his friend Enkidu, the wild man of the woods: how they went on adventures together and slew monsters, until at last Enkidu became ill and died; how Gilgamesh had grieved and raged for his friend’s death, and for the knowledge that he, too, Gilgamesh the son of the goddess Ninsun, was fated to die and go down to Hades’ realm; how he had wandered across the world searching for the secret of immortality, until he met Noah, who told him the story of how he had built the Ark and survived the Flood, and told him, too, the far older story, a thousand years old even when Noah was a child, of the garden of Eden, and how the gods had banished Adam and Eve from it, to stop them eating the fruit of the Tree of Life and becoming immortal. 

And Achilles told how Gilgamesh had left Noah, and travelled in the boat of Charon the Ferryman to the submerged Garden of Eden, and dived down beneath the flood-waters to where the prickly Tree of Life still grew, and picked a flower from it to take back to Uruk to make all the old men there eternally young and immortal, and how a snake had stolen the blossom and eaten it, and how Gilgamesh had wept because now only the snake would be immortal, renewing itself every time it shed its skin, but he, Gilgamesh the king, could not; and how he returned to Uruk, inscribed his story on a stone tablet, and died, worn out with questing. 

‘And so,’ Achilles concluded, ‘I have resolved that Gilgamesh’s quest will not be in vain. I will travel as he did, and search until I find the lost Garden of Eden, and tie weights to my feet and dive down to pick the prickly flower as he did, but I’ll keep an eye out for snakes. And whoever wants to come with me is welcome to eat the flower with me, so that we can be immortal together! Who’s interested?’

A few people, mostly those who’d been drinking, cheered and shouted, ‘Count me in!’ Talthybius whispered to Eurybates, ‘He’s completely mad, isn’t he?’ and Eurybates whispered back, ‘Or he’s just pretending to be mad. Princes do that sometimes.’ Old Phoenix patted Achilles on the shoulder and said, ‘Don’t you think maybe you might be missing the point of the story, just a bit?’ 

Cressida whispered to Troilus, ‘Do _you_ want to go with him? I’ll go wherever you go.’ Troilus said nothing. Achilles had taken a long time to tell the story of Gilgamesh, and, by the time he reached the part about the serpent, Troilus was fast asleep.

Around midnight, Troilus woke up and saw Pandarus standing next to him. He had a scarf wound round the remains of his face, and he was holding a wax tablet and a stylus, which was what Trojans wrote with for a lot of the time, because paper was so expensive during the war. Troilus, wondering what was going on and whether it was real or a dream, whispered, ‘How did you get here?’ But Pandarus shook his head, as if to say that he couldn’t speak, and crouched down so that Troilus could read what was written on the tablet:

‘Diomedes made poets’ meat of me,

For poets have to blend a gory line

With metaphors and poignant eulogy,

As Greeks drink water mixed with crimson wine;

They pattern deaths to weave a great design

Where Gilgamesh, Achilles, Hamlet, must,

Like all the mass of mortals, come to dust.’

Troilus rubbed his eyes, trying to make sense of it. He realised that Pandarus must be dead, and that he was seeing a ghost, but he’d always thought ghosts only came to wail, ‘Avenge my murder!’ or at least, ‘Why haven’t you buried me yet?’ not just to chat about the body-count in the average epic poem. But he knew it was true; most of the poems written at that time were epics about war and the deaths of great warriors, and were always full of descriptions of people being messily hacked to bits. But – ‘ _You’re_ not the sort of hero the poets write about, surely?’ he asked. Though, he admitted privately, the poems might be more entertaining if they did. Pandarus shook his head, smoothed out the wax, and wrote again, his brown eyes twinkling a little as he wrote:

‘I’m no great hero, nor was meant to be,

But just a wretched, rash, intruding fool,

Invoked to break a truce by treachery,

Then die – and thus the poet tells his school

That breaking sacred truces, as a rule,

Is just the kind of thing that he denounces;

It’s tough, but that’s the way the cookie bounces.

‘But Shakespeare thinks my character is tacky,

And he’d have Troilus cast me off. And so,

If Shakespeare wants to call me “broker-lackey,”

What label would he give, I’d like to know,

To Lady Viola, called Cesario?

Or to Don Pedro, Prince of Aragon?

They helped their friends in love, as I have done.’

‘I _know_ you have!’ cried Troilus. ‘I don’t know who Viola or Don Pedro were, but I don’t believe they could have been better friends than you were to me, and I don’t care what some spear-shaking poet thinks! You’re my friend and my sworn brother, and nothing any poet writes can alter that!’

He stretched out his arms to hug the ghost, but it vanished, and Troilus began to sob until he thought he’d choke on his tears. He felt that he had never been so miserable in his life, not even on the night when he’d watched for Cressida’s return and worried that she might never come. It wasn’t the first time that someone he loved had died. Before the war began, Troilus had had forty-nine brothers – eighteen who were the sons of Priam and Hecabe, and thirty-one who were Priam’s sons by other women – and most of them had been killed in battle by now, and virtually all of them had been braver, more honourable men than Pandarus son of Lycaon. But, for all that, Troilus had never felt as much grief for any of his biological brothers as for this cheerful, manipulative, warm-hearted old reprobate who couldn’t be serious even when he was dead.

And, yes, frankly, Shakespeare would have thought that Troilus ought to end their friendship. But then, Troilus had never read Shakespeare, and didn’t know that a proper prince was one who dumped all his old friends when he grew up, and announced that the only reason he’d hung around with such a bunch of low-lifes was so that people would be impressed when he reformed. Troilus was a plain Bronze Age heathen, and in those days, people thought that a good man should love his friends even if he was a prince.

Troilus couldn’t sleep for the rest of that night. He sat by the smouldering fire, watching Cressida sleeping, and at the Greeks surrounding them. He wondered whether he ought to wake up Cressida and urge her to run away with him before the Myrmidons woke, or whether to wake up Achilles and challenge him to a duel, but he couldn’t convince himself that either was the right way to treat his hosts. The Myrmidons weren’t his enemies any more; they weren’t fighting for Agamemnon, and he wasn’t fighting for Troy. It was a stupid, pointless war, which had killed his best friend and had nearly taken his girlfriend. 

He knew that a few years ago when he had first been in love with Cressida, or even a few days ago when he thought she wasn’t coming back to Troy, he had desperately wanted to die in battle to end his unhappiness, but now he couldn’t imagine how he had ever felt that way. If you were unhappy before you died, dying couldn’t stop you being unhappy, even if you were someone like Pandarus who could treat it as a joke. And anyway, now that Pandarus was dead and he, Troilus, was alive, the only good things he could do were the ones he’d promised Pandarus: to protect Cressida, and to try to find a good place for a Trojan colony, if any Trojans survived to go there. So, he thought, if Achilles wanted to go on strange adventures in distant lands, they might as well go with him. 


	9. Chapter 9

In the morning, Achilles’ mother, Thetis, came to visit. She rose up out of the sea like a soft mist, but she was very solid and tangible by the time she reached the shore, and she kissed Achilles and said, ‘Hello, favourite boy. Did you sleep well?’

Achilles yawned. ‘Yeah, okay, thanks. This is Troilus – one of the Trojan princes I was fighting against – and that’s Cressida, Calchas’s daughter. They’re fed up with the war, same as us, so we had dinner together.’

Thetis smiled. ‘That’s kind of you. Now, are you about ready for breakfast? I’ve brought some orange juice and some smoked salmon, and fresh trout.’

Achilles rolled his eyes. ‘Mum, how many times have we had this conversation?’ he sighed. ‘I can’t stand salmon, trout, or any kind of seafood, I never have liked it, and I never will like it. I mean, okay, if I was stuck on a desert island and there were absolutely no pigs or sheep or cattle, and I was absolutely starving, possibly I’d eat fish, but otherwise, I think it’s disgusting. Sorry, I know you’re a sea-goddess, and I love you, but, really, when it comes to food, I wish you could’ve been a goddess of steak instead.’

Thetis, who was used to Achilles’ being grumpy first thing in the morning – or at any other time, if it came to that – said, ‘I’m sorry, darling, I’d completely forgotten. It’s just that Hephaestus used to love fish, when I was his foster-mother when he was a little godling. Well, would you prefer pancakes?’

‘Yeah, okay,’ muttered Achilles, and the food in Thetis’s hands changed into a plate of pancakes, with jars of honey and marmalade on the side. She shared them out among Achilles and his followers, and the more she gave, the more there was: toast and marmalade, and croissants, and bread with cheese and salami, and grapes and melons, and plenty of coffee. So they all had breakfast, and when they’d finished, Achilles explained his plan to search for Eden and dive down to the Tree of Life, and asked if Thetis knew where it was.

Thetis hugged him, and ruffled his hair as though he was a child. ‘Oh, lovey one,’ she sighed, ‘I have told you before: you’re not destined to be immortal. You’ve been given the choice between dying young but being remembered as a great hero for thousands of years, or having a longish life for a mortal, and a happy, peaceful life and then being forgotten when you die, but either way, you’re going to die. I wish I could make you immortal, but not even Zeus himself can change your destiny – and believe me, I’ve asked him!’

‘Okay, I know,’ said Achilles. ‘But if I’m fated to die, I want to have some exciting adventures and go on quests while I’m alive, because you never hear of people achieving much _after_ they die, do you? Well, okay, Alcestis did, or she achieved something heroic by dying, anyway, but I want to live like a hero before I die like one.’

‘Yes, I do understand,’ said Thetis. ‘Oh, well...’ and she picked up an empty clay pot that had held honey, and began scratching a chart on the side and sketching out a route. ‘If you go this way, you should find a good harbour most nights, because I know you don’t like overnight sailing – but promise me you’ll stay out if the sea’s too rough to land safely, won’t you? And the natives in this harbour are friendly, and so are the ones on that island, but they eat drugged fruit called lotus-fruit, so if you eat any you might find it hard to get moving again – the ones here are cannibals, but if you want to keep in practice for battle, they’re a worthy enemy – this island’s got man-eating ogres on it, that one’s got a sphinx and a shape-shifter, and that one belongs to Helios the sun-god, so whatever you do, _don’t_ eat his cows without asking. Now, _here_ , you’re going to need earplugs while you cross the Sirens’ sea...’

Achilles rolled his eyes impatiently at this. ‘Why do you think we need _earplugs_?’ he demanded. 

‘Because mortals who hear the Sirens can’t bear it, and they drown themselves. Look, here’s some wax, so if you each pinch of a couple of pieces, roll them in your fingers until they get soft, and...’

‘When dad was with Jason and the Argonauts, _they_ got past the Sirens all right, didn’t they?’ interrupted Achilles.

‘Well, yes, but then they had Orpheus the harper to sing a beautiful song to distract them from the Sirens.’

‘Well, I don’t want to be distracted,’ said Achilles. ‘I’m a singer myself, and I want to hear the Sirens’ song, and learn to sing it even more beautifully than they do themselves. Then I can teach it to all mortals, and they’ll have it forever.’

‘Patroclus, dear, make sure Achilles wears his earplugs, won’t you?’ said Thetis.

Patroclus rolled his eyes. ‘You know what it’s like, trying to make Achilles do anything he doesn’t want to do,’ he said. ‘But I’ll do my best to look after him.’

So, after that, most of the Myrmidons went home, and Achilles and the hundred or so who chose to go with him piled into one ship to go in search of Eden. Patroclus and Phoenix went with him, of course, and so did Troilus and Cressida, and he insisted on taking Calchas, Talthybius and Eurybates, and Thersites, to make sure they couldn’t stir up trouble in Pthia while he wasn’t there. They didn’t argue, as they didn’t have anywhere else to go. Eurybates was the only one who was apprehensive, because, as he whispered to Talthybius when they were alone, ‘You never know what heroes might do. I heard about this hero, Bellerophon, who a king wanted to get rid of because his wife – the king’s wife, I mean, not Bellerophon’s wife – was in love with him, so he sent him to another king and gave him a letter saying he was to kill him.’

‘You mean Bellerophon had to kill the king?’ asked Talthybius. ‘Was it the king whose wife he loved that he had to kill, or the other king?’

‘ _No!_ ’ snapped Eurybates. ‘The king who wanted Bellerophon dead – he was called Proitos – gave him a letter to give to the _other_ king, the king of Lycia, telling the king of Lycia to kill Bellerophon. Only Bellerophon changed Proitos’s letter to tell the king of Lycia to kill his courtiers – I mean Bellerophon’s courtiers, or maybe Proitos’s courtiers, not the king of Lycia’s courtiers – so the king of Lycia had the courtiers’ heads chopped off instead, and gave Bellerophon a good holiday for about a month, until he – the king of Lycia – had _another_ letter from Proitos, saying, “Is Bellerophon dead yet, and if not, why not?” So then the king of Lycia realised he’d made a bit of a hash of things, and sent Bellerophon to kill a dragon that was half lion and half snake and half goat, but Bellerophon killed it, and then he had to go out and fight some men called the Solymoi, and then some fighting women called the Amazons, and then when he was coming back to Lycia, the king of Lycia set some men to ambush him, but Bellerophon killed them as well, so after that the king of Lycia got fed up with trying to kill him and gave him his daughter’s hand in marriage instead. And Bellerophon had three children who all grew up to do great things, but then he tried to fly to the heavens on a winged horse and it threw him off and blinded him, so he decided that all the gods hated him and he became a recluse who went out to sulk in the desert.’

‘But why did he have his courtiers killed?’ asked Talthybius. ‘Why didn’t he just write a new letter, asking the king of Lycia to give _all_ of them a good holiday and plenty of presents? I mean, it wouldn’t have made any difference, would it?’

‘No, I know,’ said Eurybates, ‘but that’s what heroes _do_. They always think it’s a good day for somebody else to die, and now we’ve thrown in our lot with a hero, the somebody else will probably be us. I mean, Achilles is the type, isn’t he? You can just see him ending his days roaming the desert alone, holding aloof from the common herd and soliloquising about how all the gods hate him.’

So the atmosphere was tense for the first few days, but gradually Talthybius and Eurybates came to accept that Achilles didn’t seem to want them dead. They sailed on for several months, and full moon came and went twice, but the first time, they were on land and Troilus and Cressida managed to slip away inland until dawn. The second time, they were out at sea on a stormy night, but Calchas offered to sit as look-out all night, so that Cressida could sleep in his cabin alone. Cressida found that she was getting on with her father much better than she ever had before. She couldn’t bring herself to like him, exactly, but now that she was a grown woman and didn’t have to be afraid of him or resent him, she began to feel sorry for him. He was such a coward that Cressida, who had only just started trying to be brave, felt comfortably superior to him. They didn’t talk much, because there were so many things they couldn’t bear to talk about – especially about what had happened to Argive – but Cressida knew that he was trying not to let her down the way that he’d let her mother down, and that he seemed to accept her being engaged to Troilus, and, really, that was more than she’d expected.

After a couple of months, the crew heard a murmuring in the distance that they guessed must be the Sirens’ song, though it was barely on the edge of hearing, and Achilles, who had very sharp ears, was the first to catch it. ‘All right, men – and Briseis and Cressida, of course,’ he began...

‘And Patroclus,’ added Thersites.

‘And rats like you, Thersites. _Anyway_ , when I give the order, you’re to put your earplugs in, but first, I want you to lash me to the main mast.’

‘Oooh, didn’t know you were into that sort of thing...’

‘Shut up, Thersites. I intend to be the first man to listen to the Sirens’ song and live, but for that, I need to be tied firmly to the mast. If I try to escape, or beg to be freed, tie me more firmly. Patroclus, do you promise to do that?’

‘Okay, if you insist, but do you really think this is a good idea?’ asked Patroclus. ‘I mean, your mum said you’d need the earplugs, and she’s a sea-goddess and she knows what the Sirens are like. Don’t you think...’

‘I think I’m old enough to make my own decisions,’ said Achilles. ‘Now, you’d better tie me up straightaway, and put your own earplugs in before we get any closer.’

So Patroclus, Phoenix, and Troilus tied Achilles to the mast, as firmly as they could without throttling him, and then they and all the others put their earplugs in, and sailed closer to the Sirens. They were strange creatures, like mermaids with glossy scales as bright yellow as lemons, and they leapt out of the waves like dolphins, and their eyes flashed red and blue fire. The crew could only guess what haunting and unearthly music Achilles was hearing, that made him wriggle his head frantically, and grimace with pain at being kept from the singers.

But Achilles could hear the song, growing louder and louder as he approached, ‘ _Neee-naaa! Neee-naaa! Neee-naaa!_ ’ so high and so low that he felt it rather than hearing it, the ‘ _Neee!_ ’ as high as toothache, and the ‘ _Naaa!_ ’ so low that it felt like being kicked in the stomach. He was frantic with pain, trying to hunch his head so that he could hold one ear against his shoulder and the other to the mast to try and block out the sound, but the crew just came and tied him more tightly because they thought he was trying to escape, and he didn’t _want_ to escape, he just wanted his arms free so that he could put his hands over his ears, or maybe drown himself so that he wouldn’t be able to hear any more, oh gods, he couldn’t _think_ with all this racket, why wouldn’t they let him cover his ears? Did they all really hate him so much that they _wanted_ his ears to burst? Was it Briseis tormenting him like this, because he’d killed her family? Or was it Thersites, or had Troilus been sent to destroy him, or had Talthybius and Eurybates? Surely Patroclus couldn’t be in on it, yet he was there, tying more and more ropes around his adopted brother. Achilles stared into his eyes, and silently mouthed ‘ _Give – me – earplugs_.’

Patroclus guessed that something was wrong, and pulled out his own earplugs to hear what Achilles was saying. At that moment, he understood what the problem was, and immediately clapped his own hands over Achilles’ ears to protect them. The screeching carried on, louder and louder, and Patroclus didn’t know whether it had lasted fifteen minutes, fifteen hours or fifteen years, because there was only _now_ , and right _now_ he was there to protect Achilles’ ears, and it didn’t make any difference if _now_ lasted forever. 

But it didn’t last forever, because, after a while, Patroclus realised he couldn’t hear the Sirens any more. In fact, nothing was making any noise. The sail was flapping silently, and, although there were gulls swooping around, they weren’t calling to each other. So Patroclus knew he could relax, and he collapsed onto the deck without the slightest thump. When he woke up, he was lying in his bunk, and Briseis was mopping his face with a cool, wet cloth and mouthing something to him, but he had no idea what she was on about, so he went back to sleep.

For the next few days, Patroclus porpoised in and out of sleep. When he was awake, he couldn’t hear anything, and couldn’t remember where he was or how he’d got there, but he couldn’t stay awake long enough to do more than swallow a few mouthfuls of water, smile faintly at whoever was sitting beside him – sometimes Achilles, sometimes Phoenix, but most often Briseis – and then collapse back into dreams where the screeching of the Sirens pursued him again.

It was several days before Achilles managed to find a place to land the ship, hoping he might find someone who could help Patroclus. And when he did, he found the strangest adventure of all.


	10. Chapter 10

Achilles’ ship rode the waves for nine days, and, on the morning of the tenth day, he landed on an island he had never seen before. It was a wild and beautiful place which seemed not to have any buildings, or at least none that were visible from the beach, but it had a good natural harbour, as well as caves by the seashore, and herds of seals lying on the beaches. Achilles and Briseis carried Patroclus to the coolness of one of the caves, and Briseis found a pool where fresh water had dripped from the ceiling, and tried to pour some of it into Patroclus’s mouth, but it nearly made him choke.

‘Do you think if we found some grapes, he might be able to swallow some grape-juice?’ suggested Troilus. ‘Or if this is the island with the lotus-fruit, it might help him relax and rest a bit better.’

‘No, we’re past the island of the lotus-eaters,’ said Achilles, trying to sound confident. In fact, he had long ago lost track of where they were in relation to the map that Thetis had scratched on the honey-jar, and the jar had rolled overboard in a storm, but there didn’t seem to be any point in admitting that he was lost. ‘No, this’ll be, uh, Pharos. Off the coast of Egypt.’

‘Is Pharos the one with minotaurs on it?’ asked Cressida. ‘Or cyclopes?’

‘No, the cyclopes are way over that way,’ said Achilles, waving his arm in a gesture that took in 360 degrees. ‘And minotaurs are virtually extinct by now. Anyway, I’m going inland, to see if there’s anyone living here who can help us. Briseis, you stay here and look after Patroclus. And the rest of you, stay here to guard them. I’m just taking Phoenix, and Troilus and Cressida.’

So the four of them set off inland. They realised almost at once that the island must be inhabited, because there was a path leading up from the beach, and it wound inland, with prickly hedges on both sides with red berries that looked poisonous, until finally they found themselves at the door of a great house. Yet there didn’t seem to be anyone there to welcome them – no grooms to unhitch their horses, if they had had any horses, and no maids to bring them water to wash in, or offer them food and drinks. The place looked deserted, but, deep inside the house, Achilles heard a woman singing softly:

‘What did he do, the great god Apollo,

Leto and Jove’s son, the sun-god?

Founded the craft for physicians to follow,

Knowing the herbs to cure all that men ail;

They came and he healed them, each day, without fail,

And everyone praised the great sun-god.’

‘I know that song!’ exclaimed Troilus. ‘A nymph called Oenone wrote it for my brother Paris – you see, she was Paris’s first girlfriend. He used to look after my dad’s cattle before the war, and one day when he was out on the hillside, he met this nymph, but then he dumped her after a few weeks. I’ve never met her, and I don’t think she ever saw Paris again, but she wrote him a letter with that song in it.’

Achilles knocked on the door, but there was no answer. The voice just went on singing:

‘But a sudden change came over Apollo;

Clouded the face of the sun-god.

Now he discovered his wisdom was hollow;

He, bound with love for Admetus’ fair daughter,

Found all his potions as useless as water.

Nothing could cure the great sun-god.’

‘Well, we might as well go in,’ said Achilles. ‘After all, if they can speak our language and they’ve heard of Apollo, they must be fairly civilised.’ 

He pushed the door open, to reveal a long tapestry winding along the hallway. Phoenix pointed at it excitedly: ‘Look, that’s the palace in Sparta! I remember when I was wandering in Sparta, before I came to your father’s house, Achilles – back when my dad had banished me for seducing his girlfriend – I stayed with old King Tydeus, who was king of Sparta before Menelaus. He and Queen Leda had four children back then, but the boys, Castor and Pollux, died young, so that just left the girls, Clytemnestra and Helen – look, in the tapestry you can see the burial-mound of Castor and Pollux; there’s Agamemnon taking Clytemnestra off to be his queen in Mycenae; and there’s Menelaus marrying Helen, and Tydeus promising to make Menelaus the next king of Sparta.’ And he was certainly right, because whoever had woven the tapestry had embroidered the names of all the figures in the pictures, so that anyone who looked at it could see what was going on.

‘Do you think they’ve heard the story?’ asked Cressida. ‘About how Helen came to Troy, and about the war?’

Phoenix shook his head. ‘I don’t think it’s just a story they’ve heard. Look at the detail on the palace – the marble baths, and the tumblers dancing as the minstrel sings – and then there are all the fields and orchards in the background. That’s woven by someone who knows Sparta, probably even lived there. And the faces of the people – they’re by someone who’s seen Agamemnon and Menelaus, and Tydeus and Clytemnestra, for that matter.’

‘They haven’t got Helen right, though,’ said Troilus. ‘She’s much prettier than that.’

As the four of them walked along the tapestry, they saw that it told a story, like a comic-strip. It wound round wall after wall, corner after corner, room after room, and all four travellers were too fascinated by the tapestry to notice that they were lost. There were pictures of Helen holding a baby girl called Hermione – ‘Helen never told me she had a little girl!’ gasped Cressida – and Clytemnestra with three children, the tallest a girl called Iphigenia who looked a lot like Helen, then a boy called Orestes, and then the youngest, a little girl called Electra. Achilles muttered, ‘I wonder if they’re going to show what Agamemnon did to Iphigenia?’

But then the scene changed to a landscape that seemed to be meant to look vaguely Oriental, and didn’t seem nearly as realistic as the pictures of Greece. The only things in it that looked solid were Paris, wearing a peasant’s smock and offering a handful of hay to a white bull, and, behind the bull, a lady woven in gold thread to show that she was a goddess, and, above her, the name ‘Oenone’.

‘I thought you said Oenone didn’t see Paris again, after he deserted her?’ said Cressida. ‘But _this_ version’s got her following him to Troy – standing in the background while he’s crowned as prince – and, look, she’s even following him over the sea to Sparta – hiding behind a pillar in the banqueting-hall while Helen and Paris are flirting and Menelaus doesn’t notice – following Helen and Paris, and flying behind their ship as they go back to – what?! They – aren’t – going – to – Troy; they’re _here_ – and then Helen and Paris are quarrelling – Helen storms off and Oenone comes to speak to her – oh Aphrodite! Oenone’s _disguising_ herself as Helen and going off with Paris...’

‘I expect it’ll show the war next,’ said Achilles. ‘Telling sad stories of the deaths of kings, wounded horses kicking in pain under wrecked chariots, that sort of thing.’

But he was wrong. The tapestry wound on to show Menelaus sitting in Sparta with a miserable-looking Hermione, who grew taller in each picture; Paris lounging around in Troy, sharing a bunch of grapes with a Helen in gold thread who was really Oenone; and Agamemnon and Clytemnestra happily playing with Iphigenia, Orestes and Electra. ‘Oh, come on, this is nonsense!’ snorted Achilles. ‘The stupid woman who wove this didn’t even know that there’s a war on. And as for this nonsense about Helen not really being Helen, and the real Helen being somewhere else – oh, here’s some action, anyway – a lot of flat-chested warrior women in leopard-skin skirts come to the island with spears and bows and arrows, and a huge cat-thing as big as a house speaks to them and they turn into stone? What’s that got to do with Helen, anyway? What’s she supposed to be doing?’

But as they followed the tapestry round to the next room, they found that it finished, and they were standing in the middle of the house. There weren’t any windows in the walls, but the whole roof was made of glass, so that the room was bright with the noonday sun. And there, in the middle, a woman was lying asleep in an armchair, with a white dress lying across her lap with ‘Iphig’ embroidered on it in gold. She looked about forty, and her hair was beginning to turn grey in places, but her face looked as if she’d been a very pretty girl once, and was now just sad. She wasn’t deeply asleep, and when Achilles’ shadow fell across her, she started, murmured, ‘Proteus?’ then opened her eyes and gasped, ‘Oh gods – Phoenix, is that you? And Peleus – sorry, of course you’re not – but are you related to Peleus son of Aeacus?’

‘I’m his son,’ announced Achilles. ‘And this is Troilus son of Priam, and this is Cressida daughter of Calchas.’

‘Oh, gods!’ repeated the woman. ‘Did Menelaus send you? Or was it Paris? How _is_ Menelaus? How’s Hermione? And Clytemnestra? I’ve been making this wedding-dress for Iphigenia, but perhaps she’s already married by now...’

‘No, she’s dead,’ said Achilles coldly. ‘And if you’re the real Helen, and you’ve swapped places with a nymph of Mount Ida and been sitting here for the past nine years waiting to see if anyone noticed, I think you should know that Agamemnon killed her to get a fair wind for Troy in order to get you back. And I’ve wasted nine years of my life afflicting the Trojans for your sake, and sent many noble brothers of young Troilus down to the Underworld before their time, and this girl has lived in disgrace and fear for her life because her father was so frightened by the Greek invasion that he defected to our side and left her back in Troy. And I’m sure you’ve got some terribly romantic explanation for why you never bothered to come back to Sparta when you’d got tired of Paris, but whatever it is, it can’t ransom thousands of brave soldiers from the grave.’

Helen groaned, her head in her hands, and said, ‘No, there’s no good reason. I was an idiot to leave Menelaus, I was fed up to the back teeth with Paris by the time we arrived here, and I just thought I’d be able to get home somehow. I didn’t really think Agamemnon would use me as an excuse to invade Troy – though I suppose I should have guessed he would!’ she added bitterly.

‘I don’t see why we bother making up reasons for wars,’ said Achilles. ‘I mean, if you’re having a war, you’re obviously not being civilised, so why don’t we just say, “We’re invading you because we want to steal your cattle and take your wives and children as slaves.”? Why do we faff about making up reasons why this is a legal war and completely different from an illegal war and we’re the good guys?’

‘But I thought _we_ were the good guys,’ protested Troilus. ‘I mean, after all, we were defending our city – well, I was until I – you know...’

‘Well, anyway, now we’ve found you, we can put an end to it,’ said Achilles briskly to Helen. ‘If you come back to Troy with us, we can tell everyone the truth, Agamemnon’s excuse crumbles to dust, and you and Menelaus can go home.’

But Helen just shook her head sadly. ‘We can’t go anywhere. There’s a Sphinx patrolling the island, turning everyone who can’t answer its riddles to stone. The only reason I’ve survived is that Proteus is keeping me prisoner and the Sphinx can’t get in. But of course, that means we can’t get out past Proteus, either.’

Achilles snorted: ‘I’ll fight this Proteus, man-to-man. Who is he, anyway? What does he look like?’

‘Well, it depends on his mood. Sometimes he looks like a fire, or an elephant or a cobra. But at this time of day, he generally looks like a prickly hedge with red berries.’

‘Stay there, all of you!’ commanded Achilles. ‘I’ll deal with this.’ And he turned and strode out, back along the tapestry to the entrance, to face Proteus, while Helen, Phoenix, Troilus and Cressida wondered if he had gone insane.


	11. Chapter 11

When Achilles reached the doorway of Helen’s house, he could see that the hedge had disappeared, and in its place was a ring of fire surrounding the house. He knew that there was no way he could destroy it, so he decided to say his final words:

‘What, fried by fire? Was _this_ the will of Zeus?

Then, Proteus, to thy work! Come, burn me up;

I reck not though this hour thou tak’st my life.

Too many friends have perished by my folly:

Patroclus, lying poisoned by the Sirens;

Old Phoenix next, and Troilus and his love,

Who followed me to this accurséd house.

Come then, consuming fire, dear foe who brings

To fools like me a funeral fit for kings!’

And with that he would have rushed forward, if Thetis hadn’t materialised in front of him at that moment, and passed a soft cool hand over his brow as though he was a sick child, and kissed him and said, ‘Oh, Achilles, my beautiful boy! You don’t really think you’ve come this far just to be defeated by a sea-monster, do you? Have you forgotten that you’re the son of a sea-goddess, a shape-shifter like Proteus?’

‘For Zeus’s sake, mum, do you have to embarrass me in front of my enemies?’ groaned Achilles. ‘I’m a grown man, I’ve been fighting in Troy for nine years, if I’m going to die I’ll do it on my own terms! I don’t need you running up to put a plaster on my knee and give me a lollipop!’

‘I know, darling, and when you _are_ fated to die, I can’t stop it happening. But I _can_ give you some help for now. I’ll give you the power to shape-shift for one hour, and that should give you time to defeat Proteus. And then, when you meet the Sphinx...’

But Achilles wasn’t listening any more, because he had turned into a huge rain-cloud and was doing his best to extinguish the fire-Proteus. So Thetis sighed, melted into thin air again, and left them to it.

The battle of Achilles and Proteus was a truly epic one, and I wish I was enough of a poet to describe it properly, but I can’t. Proteus turned from a fire into a cobra, and Achilles became a mongoose that launched itself at the back of Proteus’s neck, bit him behind the hood and hung on tightly as Proteus thrashed around. Proteus became a breath, and Achilles became a piece of glass on which the breath condensed. Proteus became a light-beam, and Achilles became a blackboard that absorbed the light. Proteus became a fly, and, as quick as a flash, Achilles became a Venus fly-trap, snapped shut on him, and ate him, and that was that. 

And so, as the hour was up, Achilles turned back into a man, feeling slightly queasy with the remains of Proteus in his stomach, but otherwise unhurt. He called to the others that it was safe to come out now, and after a few minutes they emerged, rather slowly, with Helen, Troilus and Cressida helping each other carry the rolled-up tapestry showing what had happened. Achilles rolled his eyes when he saw it. ‘What do you need a _tapestry_ for?’ he snapped.

‘Well, I thought maybe we could give it to Paris and Oenone as a present – just to say sorry for all the trouble I’ve caused them, you know,’ explained Helen. ‘Or if they don’t want it, it’d look nice in the palace in Sparta. But I ought to take _something_ as a present for the Trojans, and this and my plants are the only things I’ve got left – by Demeter, I nearly forgot the plants!’ And with that she dropped the tapestry, hurried back inside, and returned a few minutes later with a tray full of a dozen little clay plant-pots, with a different herb in each one, and little labels saying things like ‘cures fever’, ‘anti-depressant’, ‘protects against being turned into a pig by witches’ and ‘tastes good with pasta and olive oil’. ‘I’ve had to grow these on my windowsill, because Proteus wouldn’t let me out of doors,’ Helen explained, as they walked back to the ship, ‘but I’m sure most of them will grow happily in the garden when we get back to Sparta. A bit of sunlight’s bound to do them a world of...’

But at that moment she stopped, for there in front of them, lying in the sand, was the biggest creature any of them had ever seen. It was as tall as a high building even lying down, and would have been even bigger if it had stood up. It looked like a gigantic cat, covered in golden fur, and far bigger than any lion or tiger in the zoo, but it had wings like an eagle’s, and a face that somehow reminded each of them of someone very beautiful, although afterwards they couldn’t even agree on whether it was a man’s or a woman’s face. To Cressida it looked like Troilus, and to Troilus it looked like Cressida. To Helen, it looked like Paris the evening they had first met, laughing in Menelaus’s banqueting hall in Sparta; and to Phoenix it looked like his father’s girlfriend who had been hardly any older than Phoenix himself when he was a young man; and to Achilles, it looked like a proud, brave woman whom he hadn’t met before, but really, really wanted to stay with now that he’d met her. But the truth was that none of them really noticed the rest of the Sphinx’s face, because its eyes were so beautiful. They were golden, or red or green or blue or purple, depending on how the light hit them, and they looked terrifyingly wise, as if the Sphinx was looking into your soul and knew all your secrets, and knew many more things that were far beyond your understanding. 

‘Greetings,’ it said, in a voice with a purr that could easily turn into a snarl. ‘So, I take it one of you was the genius who defeated Proteus?’

Achilles stood forward: ‘Yes, I did that: Achilles, son of Peleus.’

The Sphinx yawned: ‘Ah, yes, Thetis’s boy. Yes, with your mummy’s help I suppose you could have managed it. Not like Oedipus – no, poor Oedipus answered his own riddle with his own brains, without his parents’ help. But we couldn’t ask Achilles to do that, could we?’

‘I _can_ answer it! The answer is: exactly where you left it!’

The Sphinx seemed to laugh silently, or perhaps it was just yawning again. ‘So impetuous! Shouldn’t you have waited to see what the question was?’

‘Well, what was it, then?’ demanded Achilles.

‘To be or to be known: _that_ is the question.’

‘Oh.’ Achilles began striding up and down, trying to work out the answer, and muttering to himself:

‘To be or to be known, that is the question:

Enjoy long life, and then obscurity,

Or fight, and be remembered when I’m dead

And care no more if poets write about

The wrath of mighty Peleus’ greater son

And how I fought and killed, and how I died,

Was buried, and have turned to fruitful loam;

Or else to quest for everlasting life,

Like Gilgamesh, who dived beneath the waves

To pluck the flower off the Tree of Life,

Which yet a serpent stole, ere he could eat,

And Gilgamesh’s immortality

Was but to have his quest inscribed in clay...’

‘Well?’ said the Sphinx. ‘I’m waiting for an answer.’

‘Come on,’ pleaded Achilles, ‘it’s a good question, and I want to do it justice. I’m a philosopher, I need more time to think it over.’

‘So how long do you need?’

‘Well, say about fifty years...’ began Achilles. but his voice tailed off as the Sphinx gazed steadily at him with its great golden eyes, and he became very still and rigid, as still as stone.

Phoenix stepped forward, and bowed to the Sphinx. ‘Please, great Sphinx, couldn’t you take my life instead of Achilles?’ he begged. ‘Let him go home to his father, old King Peleus. There’s no-one who needs me, and Peleus is going to be devastated if his only son doesn’t come home.’

The Sphinx half-closed its eyes: ‘You seem to know a lot about fatherly love.’

‘I know Peleus. He was better than a father to me and to Patroclus when we were exiled from our homelands. He made me tutor to the boys and...’

‘And you must have had _so_ much to teach them about respecting their elders,’ purred the Sphinx. ‘After your own father banished you because you seduced his girlfriend, you must have been an ideal role model.’

Phoenix started to shake with anger. ‘It wasn’t like that!’ he snapped. ‘I just wanted her to split up with my dad so that he’d get back together with my mum and our family could go back to normal! I don’t believe the gods would condemn what I did!’

‘I see,’ said the Sphinx. ‘I suppose men as wise as you have a far more – _sophisticated_ moral philosophy than ordinary people. So, will you tell me, out of your wisdom, just one thing? Is an action holy because the gods approve of it, or do they approve of it because it is holy?’

Proteus screwed up his brain trying to work out the answer. He was sure the answer _must_ be that the gods approve of good actions because they are holy, but, according to the legends, Zeus had overthrown his father, Cronos, who had overthrown his own father, the Sky-Father, who was married to the Earth-Mother even though some people said he was also the _son_ of the Earth-Mother, and so if it was okay for the Sky-Father to marry his mother, why was it wrong when Oedipus did it, and who had been the Sky-Father’s father anyway? And yet, now that Zeus was the chief god, he seemed very sure that children should always obey their elders, because he didn’t want any of his own offspring overthrowing him. And if the gods were just more lawless, irresponsible versions of humans, why should anyone care what they thought? But if the real gods weren’t like that at all, then could you be sure they even cared about how humans behaved? He was sure there must be an answer, but his brain was going too slowly to work it out, slowing – down – to – stone.

‘Why are you only asking the _men_ questions?’ asked Helen. ‘Are you afraid to let women think?’

‘On the contrary! You shall have your riddle too, my dear Helen. Now, you must have seen, in your years in Egypt, that cats nearly always land on their paws, don’t they?’ Helen nodded. ‘And toast, on the other hand, nearly always lands butter-side down, doesn’t it?’

‘Well, usually...’

‘So,’ continued the Sphinx, ‘if you strap a piece of buttered toast to the back of a cat and throw it off the top of a pyramid – _is the cat alive or dead_?’

Helen opened her mouth to say, ‘Yes,’ but then she wondered whether that was too obvious to be the right answer, and whether she ought to say something else, like, ‘Does the toast have marmalade on, or just butter?’ or ‘How high is the pyramid?’ or ‘Is there an expensive carpet underneath?’ And so, because she hesitated, she turned to stone without saying anything at all.

And then it was Troilus’s turn. He knew he couldn’t answer the Sphinx’s riddles, but he thought that if he could only distract it enough, Cressida might have a chance to run away. So he hurled his spear as hard as he could at the Sphinx, but the Sphinx just batted the spear aside as if it were a bothersome fly, snapping it in two, and then yawned and said, ‘Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten you, and your riddle is an easy enough one. I saw a lion turn into a hare, and the hare turned and chased after a wolf. Why was that?’

Troilus blushed deeply. He knew perfectly well what the Sphinx meant: that he had been as ferocious as a lion when he was fighting for Troy, and that all of a sudden he had run away on account of Cressida. It had all seemed so obviously _right_ , when Pandarus had asked him to look after Cressida, but now the Sphinx’s face didn’t look at all like Cressida, but a bit like Hector when he was kissing his wife and his little boy goodbye before going out to battle, and a bit like King Priam whenever they held a funeral for yet another of his sons, and Troilus wondered how on earth he could explain to his father or his brothers why he had deserted Troy in its hour of need. He longed to turn to stone so that he could escape that steady, sad, noble stare.

And then only Cressida was left. ‘Come on,’ she said, taking the stone right hand of Troilus’s statue in both her own, ‘you’d better turn me to stone as well.’

‘Now, now, we must do things properly,’ said the Sphinx. ‘What animal runs on four legs by night, and on two by day, but is ruined when it goes on three?’

Suddenly Cressida was too angry to be afraid: angry that the Sphinx knew all their secrets, and did nothing with the knowledge but taunt them. But she knew that if she lost her temper, she’d just turn to stone, like the rest, so she forced herself to say, calmly and levelly, ‘A werewolf.’

The Sphinx purred: ‘Ver-ry good! You’re free to go.’

‘Not quite,’ said Cressida. ‘It’s my turn to ask _you_ a riddle now:

‘I gave my love a cherry without any stone;

I gave my love a chicken without any bone;

I gave my love a love without longing.’

It was the only riddle she could think of on the spur of the moment, and the moment it was out of her mouth, she wished she’d thought of a trickier one. The youngest child in Troy could have answered _that_ one. But the Sphinx seemed puzzled. It twitched its tail, sat up on its haunches, and began to wash its huge shoulder with its tongue, just like a giant cat. At last it said, ‘Is this one of these ones where the sentence stops in the middle of the line, so it’s really, “Without any stone I gave my love a chicken; without any bone I gave my love a love?”’

‘No,’ said Cressida firmly, ‘it means what it says:

‘How can there be a cherry without any stone?

How can there be a chicken without any bone?

How can there be a love without longing?’

The Sphinx washed its other shoulder, rolled over in the sand to wash its stomach, and then realised that this didn’t look very dignified and went back to crouching on all fours. ‘Well?’ it said crossly at last. ‘What _is_ the answer?’

Cressida smiled. 

‘When the cherry’s in the blossom, there is no stone;

When the chicken’s in the egg, there is no bone;

When the love is fulfilled, there’s no longing.’

And as Cressida finished, she realised that the Sphinx had turned to stone, and that it didn’t look like Troilus or anyone else any more. Its features hadn’t changed, exactly, but now that it was dead, it had lost the power to control what she thought she saw, and she could see that its face wasn’t a human face at all, but just a giant cat. And now Troilus was holding her hand in his, and Achilles and all the others were staring round, wondering what had happened. ‘What _was_ the answer, anyway?’ asked Achilles. ‘About being alive or being remembered? I’ve been trying to work it out for years.’

‘I don’t know,’ said Cressida. ‘What did you mean by “Exactly where you left it”?’

Achilles looked embarrassed. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I just assumed the question was going to be, “Where do you find a one-legged tortoise?” It usually is.’

Everyone laughed, and then stopped, because they’d heard the sound of marching feet, and someone beating a drum, and women – perhaps thousands of them – singing:

‘Marching, marching on, marching onward, sister,

Marching, marching on, into death or glory,

Marching, marching on, marching onward, sister Amazon!’


	12. Chapter 12

‘Oh, well done!’ snapped Achilles. ‘The Amazons have been turned into stone by the Sphinx – you defeat the Sphinx and destroy its powers – five thousand Amazons come back to life and surround us. I don’t mind fighting at long odds, but there’s no glory in fighting women – if I slay them, I’m a cowardly bully, and if I take them prisoner, they won’t even make attractive house-slaves, with the way they mutilate themselves. So what do you suggest I do about them?’

‘It isn’t Cressida’s fault!’ retorted Troilus. ‘If it wasn’t for her, we’d still be stone statues ourselves! And if you hadn’t tried to hear the Sirens singing, Patroclus wouldn’t have got ill and we wouldn’t have landed on this island – but then I suppose we wouldn’t have met Helen, and we’d still think Oenone was the real Helen, so – well, I suppose the gods can use our stupid actions for good as well as using our brave deeds to cause us more problems, but if it was anyone’s fault – well, maybe it wasn’t anyone’s fault, because Aphrodite had decided to move people’s hearts, or Hera and Athene wanted Troy to be destroyed, or Zeus had just always foreseen it happening.’

‘Come on, don’t be so chivalrous!’ said Helen. ‘You’re too gallant to say, “This happened because Helen decided to be unfaithful to her husband,” so you keep blathering on about gods. Sooner or later, we have to take responsibility for our actions.’

‘Oh, for Aphrodite’s sake!’ snapped a voice behind them. ‘That is so typical of patriarchal culture: if a woman leaves her husband, either you blame her and call her a tart, or you make out that she’s the helpless victim of the gods’ whims! Why can’t you just accept that Helen has as much right as any man to sexual freedom, without the Greeks trying to take her back by force? Does that make it her fault, if a load of men decide to declare war on Troy? Well? Don’t you even dare look at a woman who says what she thinks?’

The group of travellers shuffled round to face the Amazons. There were several thousand of them, all barefoot, with the broad toes of people who have never worn shoes, and all tall and proud and fearless-looking. Cressida remembered hearing about foreign women who wore a mass of neck-rings, pressing their shoulders down, but this lot didn’t seem to bother with jewellery, or armour, or many clothes for that matter. Each of them was wearing a kilt of animal-skin around her waist: mostly either leopard, or cheetah, but a few, like the leader who had spoken to them, wore hyena-skins. She, and all the other women in the front line, were holding large spears, and had swords or daggers in scabbards at their sides, while those behind them either had bows and quivers of arrows slung over their shoulders, or carried slingshots or blow-pipes. They were very dark-skinned, except for the two pale pink scars on the chest of each one. But it was their eyes that held your attention: eyes that said, ‘You are probably either a male chauvinist pig or a woman who is pathetically subservient to men, and if you don’t agree with that, do you really want to tell me I’m wrong? Well, do you feel lucky, punk?’

It was Helen who found the courage to answer. ‘So, are you going to Troy to fight for Helen?’

‘That’s right,’ said the leader of the Amazons. ‘We’ve sworn to defend Queen Helen’s right, if she chooses to submit to the patriarchal oppression of heterosexual marriage, at least to live with the patriarchal oppressor of her own choice.’

Helen smiled. ‘Do you think she needs your help?’

‘Oh, for Artemis’s sake, use your commonsense! I mean, by the look of you, you’re a Greek woman yourself – you must know what it’s like for women over there, especially in places like Athens where respectable women are supposed to stay in the house and be not seen and not heard. I’ve heard it’s not quite so appalling in Sparta; whereabouts are you from?’

‘Well, I’m from Sparta, as it happens, and yes, it’s a beautiful place. My sister’s married to the king of Mycenae, and she’s always complaining about how sexist things are over there – but it’s probably just that her husband is such a toad.’

The Amazon raised her eyebrows. ‘You mean you’re Helen?’

‘I’m afraid so. The face that launched a thousand ships, etc. But, as you can see, I didn’t actually make it to Troy, I’ve been stuck here for the past ten years, and now I’m hoping finally to get to Troy and be with the man I love. Will you help me?’

‘Of course!’

‘Well, it’s easy to say that, but will you swear it? Do you and all your warriors swear, by Hera and Athene and Aphrodite, to escort me safely to my chosen partner?’

The Amazon snorted with amusement: ‘Do you really think Hera and Athene would be that impressed? But yes,’ she added, suddenly solemn: we swear by all the goddesses:

‘By Hera the queen of the gods,

And by Hestia the goddess of the hearth;

We will help you to establish your household;

by Athene the warrior,

And by Artemis the huntress,

We will fight for you;

By Aphrodite the goddess of love,

The foam-born Cyprian,

We will help you to love freely;

By the Earth-Mother, oldest of the gods,

By Demeter the goddess of corn,

By Persephone who rises from the Underworld,

Who awakens dead seeds to life,

And by Nana who conceived her son from the blossom of almonds,

Who turned him into a pine-tree when he died,

And caused violets to spring from his blood,

We will help you to rise up from slavery;

By Cybele the goddess of the Phrygians,

By Ninsun the mother of Gilgamesh,

And by Siduri the goddess of beer,

We will free you from European patriarchy.

We swear it!’

And all the other Amazons thundered together: ‘We swear it!’

‘Thank you,’ said Helen. ‘Then you’re willing to give me safe conduct to Troy so that I can go back to Menelaus?’

The Amazon leader grimaced. ‘Menelaus?’

‘Yes,’ said Helen firmly. ‘Paris was a boring spoilt brat, and I was thoroughly tired of him by the time I’d been on his ship two days, and I missed Menelaus far more than I’d expected. Which is why I jumped ship when we stopped here for supplies, in the hope of catching the next ship bound for Sparta. I didn’t know Menelaus had gone to Troy to look for me, until my friends arrived here and told me about the war. But now that I know, I just want to go to the Greeks’ camp at Troy, find Menelaus and tell him what happened, and see if he’s willing to give our marriage another chance. So, are you and your troops ready to escort me there? After all, you did swear by all the goddesses, and I shouldn’t think they’d want you breaking your vows.’

The leader glared at Helen for a moment, and then burst out laughing. It wasn’t a petite, ladylike giggle. She roared with laughter for several minutes, and at last, said: ‘You bitch! You did that on purpose, didn’t you? Tricked us into swearing the opposite of what we thought we were swearing?’

‘Of course,’ said Helen.

‘Good for you!’ The Amazon held out her hand in welcome. ‘I am Queen Penthesilea, daughter of Hippolyta, and I and my troops are at your service. To Troy!’

‘To Troy!’ agreed Achilles. ‘Where are your ships moored?’

‘On the beach on the southern side of the island. Mind you,’ Penthesilea frowned, ‘if we’ve been turned to stone for any length of time...’

‘About nine years,’ put in Helen helpfully. ‘No – nearer ten, now. I wove you into my tapestry nine years ago, after I’d seen what happened, but I had to wait for Proteus to provide me with the right sort of yarn for the lion-skins...’

‘Isis and Silili, you come with me,’ said Penthesila, pointing to a couple of guards. ‘The rest of you, go and check the ships, see how much repair-work they need. Oh, and go and catch some food and start preparing a feast for sundown, and I’ll bring our new friends over. That’s as guests, not the dish of the day,’ she added helpfully, seeing the panicky expressions of the little group Greeks and Trojans. ‘We hardly ever bother with cannibalism these days, except for old people who want to stay part of the tribe when they die. But we’ve pretty much given up eating conquered enemies. I mean, why’d you want to take on the attributes of someone so weak that you’ve been able to conquer them?’

Achilles laughed uneasily. ‘Well, unless they were clever than you and you want to eat their brains, I suppose...’

‘Doesn’t work,’ said Penthesilea, quite seriously. ‘Eating human brains, or the brains of a fairly bright animal, like a monkey, never makes you brighter, and quite often it drives you mad. That’s why I’m not convinced the whole gaining-the-attributes-of-your-food thing works. Getting lots of protein, that is good for your brain, but you don’t eat the brains themselves.’

‘I’ll try to bear that in mind,’ said Achilles. ‘Now, there are about a hundred of my crew, but I’m not sure we can all come over to dinner’ (he stressed the preposition) ‘this evening. You see, one of my friends is ill – he’s had a bad attack of Sirens – and somebody’s going to have to stay with him to protect him.’

‘I’ve heard about Sirens!’ exclaimed Helen. ‘They say that nobody who listens to them lives to tell the tale. I always wondered how anyone knew that. Did your friend try to hear them?’

‘No, I did,’ said Achilles miserably. ‘Patroclus was just trying to stop me doing something stupid, which was why he didn’t have a chance to put his hands over his ears. He should be in that cave over there.’

And, sure enough, Patroclus, like the one-legged tortoise, was lying exactly where Achilles had left him, attended by Briseis, and also, Achilles was irritated to notice, by Talthybius and Eurybates, Calchas, and Thersites. None of these men knew anything about nursing, but they’d never seen anyone dying from Sirens before, and they were curious.

Helen rummaged around the pots of herbs in her tray. ‘Headaches; defence against dragons, basilisks and chimeras; high blood pressure; knowledge of good and evil – no, that one’s never worked properly; ah, yes!’ She picked two fat, bulbous leaves from a slightly prickly plant with a bright magenta flower, carefully put the tray down, eased her way into the crowded cave, and then, gently turning Patroclus’s head, squeezed the juice of one leaf into each ear in turn.

Patroclus found himself relaxing. His head had suddenly stopped hurting, and he could hear soft background noises: not the wailing of the Sirens, but water dripping into a pool on the other side of the cave, and people anxiously breathing around him, and Thersites humming a ballad about a murderer who used to pour poison in people’s ears, and a voice he vaguely recognised asking him how he felt...

‘Helen?’ he exclaimed. ‘What on earth are you doing here?’

‘It’s a long story,’ said Helen. ‘But let’s just say I’ve learned quite a bit about herbal medicine while I’ve been here.’

‘Where are we, anyway? And how long have I been – well, a bit useless?’

‘It’s not your fault!’ said Briseis indignantly. ‘We all saw you were protecting Achilles, when we sailed through the Sirens, and it’s not your fault it made you ill! But you’ve been feverish and delirious for about ten days now. We’re on an island off the coast of Egypt; we landed here this morning, and Achilles went to look for help.’

Patroclus yawned. ‘I could really do with a sleep, now. I haven’t been able to sleep without dreaming of the Sirens’ song.’

‘What did they sing?’ asked Helen. Patroclus shook his head.

‘It was – indescribable,’ said Achilles. ‘A once-in-a-lifetime experience. It was like no music you’ve ever heard.’

‘He means it was a hideous racket,’ translated Patroclus.

‘Well, okay, but not just an ordinary racket,’ retorted Achilles. ‘It was more like – well, the screaming and wailing when someone’s being murdered, or a house is on fire, or someone’s wounded and crying out for help, or a woman’s giving birth. Or all of them at once. A great wave of grief and agony and rage and horror, rolling and crashing again and again.’

‘Like the night you burned down my city?’ asked Briseis.

‘A bit like that, only not human,’ said Achilles. ‘It was more like a mad bull bellowing, mixed with the scream of a wounded horse. The sort of noise that says: “You can get out of my way, or you can be trampled, and I don’t care which.” It wasn’t that the Sirens wanted us to drown, particularly, just that they’d seen all the agony and death of being mortal, and they didn’t think it made any difference if they added to it a bit.’

‘You’ve really thought about this, haven’t you?’ said Patroclus.

‘Yeah, sorry, filthy habit, I know,’ said Achilles briskly. ‘Anyway, how are you feeling now? Okay to go to a feast with some cannibal Amazon warriors this evening, and jump back on the ship tomorrow morning?’

‘Definitely not,’ said Briseis. ‘You need rest and peace until you’ve got your strength back. Would you like anything to eat, before you go to sleep? A bowl of soup, or some fruit, or anything?’

‘Mmm, not now, thanks,’ murmured Patroclus drowsily. ‘Maybe when I wake up. Night night.’

Achilles and the others edged out of the cave, leaving Briseis in charge. ‘What was that about a filthy habit?’ asked Thersites, as they walked away.

‘I mean thinking,’ said Achilles. ‘I can’t have just one thought and stop there.’

‘I didn’t know you could think at all.’

‘I try not to,’ said Achilles. ‘It’s all very well for people like Odysseus and Nestor, because they can think one thought, like, “How can we win this battle?” and then get on and do it. But if I start thinking, then one thought just leads to another, like “Why are we even bothering to risk our lives fighting this war in the first place?” and then another, like, “Yes, but what’s the point of living to be old?” and then, “What’s the point in dying young, either?” and so it just goes on and on, until you’ve lost the will to do anything at all.’

‘Yes, I know that one,’ said Troilus. ‘It just goes on until you convince yourself that Zeus has always foreseen what’s going to happen, so you can’t change it, so it doesn’t matter what you do.’

‘Until something makes you so angry that you forget to think at all, and just charge out in a berserk rage and slaughter loads of people,’ added Achilles. ‘It’s the only way to clear your head, going on a berserker.’

‘You were always a good berserker,’ said Troilus. ‘We used to be terrified of you. Even Hector was, and he’s the bravest person I know.’

‘You were pretty terrifying yourself,’ said Achilles. ‘Hector was a stronger fighter, but it wasn’t that hard to guess what he was trying to do: he was trying to stop us invading Troy, and kill enough of us to make the rest give up and go away. And we knew he’d be there for every battle, unless he was badly wounded. But you used to disappear for weeks at a time, and nobody could remember having killed or wounded you, and then suddenly you’d charge in as if you didn’t care if you lived or died, and you might do absolutely anything, and that made people panic. Even when you were a skinny kid whose voice had barely broken, you were lethal.’

‘I was out of my mind,’ said Troilus. ‘And then at the end of the day, I’d climb out of my armour and back into my mind again, and go back to trying to work out whether Zeus had always foreseen Troy being defeated because it was going to happen, or if it was going to happen because Zeus had foreseen it, or because Zeus was making it happen. It’d be a lot easier if we mortals knew which side Zeus was on to start with, so that the side who were predestined to lose could give in at the start, instead of wasting time fighting over it.’

‘I don’t think Zeus is allowed to take sides,’ said Achilles. ‘My mum actually knows Zeus – once she lent him a sea-monster to protect him when some of the other gods wanted to have a revolution, and she married my dad because Zeus asked her to marry a human because he’d foreseen that if she married Zeus she might have a son who was stronger than Zeus and could defeat him. And my mum says that the other gods are allowed to take sides in a war, so Hera and Athene and Poseidon were fighting for Greece and Apollo and Artemis and Ares and Aphrodite were fighting for Troy, but Zeus just has to see that destiny is fulfilled, whether he likes what destiny predestines or not.’

‘Are you sure?’ asked Troilus. ‘I always thought Zeus was the most powerful of the gods, so how can he not be able to do what he wants, when the others can?’

‘I suppose it’s because he’s the storyteller, not just a character in the story,’ said Achilles. ‘It’s like when I’m telling the story of how Gilgamesh and Enkidu slew the giant Humbaba in the cedar forest. I can tell it so that Humbaba is just an evil monster, and Gilgamesh and Enkidu are the good people, or I can tell it so that you feel sorry for Humbaba and wish Gilgamesh had spared him, but the story says that Gilgamesh and Enkidu killed Humbaba, and I can’t change that part. And I can make you feel that Gilgamesh would have been happier if he’d lived peacefully at home in Uruk, or that Enkidu would have been happier if he’d never gone to Uruk and met Gilgamesh, but gone on living with wild animals in the wilderness, eating grass with the antelope and rescuing animals from the hunters’ traps. But that isn’t what the story says, and I can’t change what happens in the story, only the way I tell it. And I think Zeus just has to make our stories tell themselves.’

Penthesilea snorted. ‘Well, that’s the biggest load of hyenas’ kidneys I’ve ever heard. When people say, “It’s destiny,” or, “It’s the will of the gods,” or, “It’s according to nature,” they generally mean, “Do as I say,” and if a man says it, he usually means that women should do what men want. And it’s not even as if they’re consistent about how women should live. In one country, they’ll say that the law of nature teaches us that men should have long hair and beards and wear hats, and women should have short hair, and then in the next country, they’ll say that according to the law of nature, women must have long hair and cover their heads and men must have short hair, no hats, and be clean-shaven! In one country they’ll say that little girls have to have their feet bound to stop them growing, so that they’re crippled for life, because it’s against nature for women to walk around, and in another they’ll say that it’s nature’s way for women to carry water-jars and do all the farming while men sit in the shade drinking palm wine! It’s all just rules invented by men.’

‘I wouldn’t dare try to make you carry water-jars,’ said Achilles. ‘Why don’t you come and sit in the shade under my ship, and have a drink?’


	13. Chapter 13

‘This is quite nice wine,’ Penthesilea conceded a few minutes later, as they sat in the shade of Achilles’ ship. ‘I didn’t know you could make wine out of grapes.’

‘Yes, well, this Trojan wine isn’t the best,’ said Achilles. ‘Proper Greek wine is thick and heavy, so you mix it with water and drink it out of bowls. This Trojan stuff is so thin you have to drink it neat for it to taste of anything, which is why they go in for these little silver cups.’

‘Looted when you sacked one of their cities?’

Achilles nodded. ‘The wine and the cups. Same place where I got my lyre, and that box with the gold and silver squares on it, for playing some game or other. And that girl who was nursing my friend back there. Used to be called Eëtion.’

‘Did she decide to change her name?’

‘No, not the girl, the town – it’s now called “scorched pile of rubble”, like all the other towns I’ve happened to. The girl doesn’t really have a name – she’s called Briseis, but that just means “daughter of Briseus”. I don’t think the Eëtionites bothered giving names to girls.’

‘That figures,’ snorted Penthesilea. ‘Typical male chauvinist lions.’

‘Don’t you mean pigs?’ asked Cressida.

‘No, lions – you know, like the game of Lions!’ Penthesilea opened the gold and silver box, which folded out to form a playing-board. She frowned at the figures inside. ‘Hmmm, these are a bit different from the sets we’ve got back home, but I’d guess these tall figures in the centre are the Lions, and these slightly smaller ones are the Lionesses, right? And the Lion is lazy and cowardly, and stays at the back of the board, out of the battle, and expects his wife to do all his killing for him? Just the way real lions do.’

‘Well, in Troy we just call them the King and the Amazon,’ said Cressida. ‘My uncle tried teaching me to play it when I was younger, but I’m not very good at it.’

‘He tried teaching me, too,’ said Troilus. ‘But it’s not a very chivalrous game. It ought to be the King fighting for his wife, not the other way round.’

‘Oh, really?’ said Penthesilea. ‘Don’t you think we’re capable of fighting? Perhaps you’d rather we were the ones sitting at home, hobbling around with tiny steps on bound feet?’

‘No, no, of course not! But you said yourself that the King – or the Lion, whatever you want to call him – is lazy and cowardly. I didn’t think lions were like that. I always thought they were brave and noble.’

‘What about the other pieces?’ asked Thersites. ‘What are they?’

‘Vultures, antelope, elephants and monkeys,’ said Penthesilea, as Cressida said, ‘Archers, spearmen, charioteers, and peasants.’

‘So I’m a monkey, and your uncle’s a vulture, is he?’ said Thersites. ‘Sounds about right. Achilles, d’you want to be an antelope or an elephant?’

Achilles shrugged. ‘I don’t mind, as long as I’m not a king like Agamemnon, relying on better men’s heroism and then taking their plunder. Penthesilea’s absolutely right about lions. That’s what Agamemnon is: a lazy, selfish, bad-tempered old lion. Anyway, what do the pieces do?’

‘Well, the Amazon can go in any direction and take any other piece,’ explained Cressida, setting up the pieces. ‘But the King can only move one step at a time, and doesn’t fight much because, when he’s taken, the game’s over. So the other pieces have to protect him. The Archers shoot diagonally, as far as possible, and the Charioteers can run forward as far as possible, or turn and run sideways or backwards, but they need a clear path. But at the start of the game, none of them can move at all, because the Peasants are in front. The Spearmen can cast a spear, not as far as the archers can shoot, but they can throw it over the heads of other pieces, and it moves in a sort of L-shape, like this or this – except that obviously the Spearman wouldn’t throw his spear there, because he’d be killing one of his own side’s Peasants.’

‘I wouldn’t blame him, if they’re as mouthy as Thersites,’ said Achilles.

‘And what about us monkeys?’ asked Thersites. ‘How do we move?’

‘Forwards,’ said Penthesilea brutally. ‘You can’t go back, because in you that’s not a tactical retreat, it’s desertion, and there’s always someone ready to urge you forward by shoving you with a spear. Only you can’t move very far because you’re lame and weak, and you’ve got nothing to fire or throw, so you can only jab at people close to you and kill them.’

‘And what if I turn round and stab the King?’ demanded Thersites. ‘He’s close to, isn’t he? And nobody’s going to complain afterwards, because they all resented having to fight for the selfish old git as well. Achilles was Agamemnon’s spearman, but he hates Agamemnon even more than I do.’

‘No, no, you don’t understand!’ said Troilus. ‘I know I said it’s not a very chivalrous game, but you’re supposed to take your opponent’s pieces, not make all your own pieces take each other! But I agree it’s not fair on the Peasants, though. They ought to be protected by the bravest and best of the Spearmen and Charioteers. But even if you don’t like the King much, isn’t it worth fighting for the honour of the Queen? We Trojans have been fighting you Greeks for ten years for the sake of Helen – are you going to say that isn’t a worthwhile cause?’

‘But I wasn’t even there, and I never asked you to fight for me,’ pointed out Helen. ‘And anyway, you left. So did Achilles.’

‘Of course we did!’ said Achilles. ‘Were Menelaus and Paris the only men ever to fall in love? Every man loves his own woman, the way Troilus loves Cressida and I...’

‘Love Patroclus,’ completed Thersites.

‘Don’t be stupid! He’s my brother, for Zeus’s sake! Even if I was gay, you don’t think I’d fall in love with my own adopted brother, do you?’

‘Why not?’ sniggered Thersites. ‘There was that king in Thebes who married his mum, wasn’t there?’

‘Only because he didn’t know she was his mum,’ pointed out Achilles. ‘Because he was adopted when he was a baby, and his stupid parents never told him he was adopted. But Patroclus was nine when he came to live with my family, so it’s not like that, and just because you’ve never had any friends yourself, you can’t imagine two men being friends unless they’re having sex, and that’s just stupid!’

‘No stupider than you being about to say you loved that Trojan slave-girl,’ retorted Thersites. ‘You didn’t even notice her any more than that board game you don’t know how to play or this booze you don’t think is much good, until Agamemnon tried to nick her off you, and then you started throwing a tantrum like a little kiddie when someone’s nicked his favourite toy, and now you’re trying to convince yourself you were in love with her all along! Like, if you were in love with her, you’d really be working this hard at trying to impress a crazy barbarian queen with no tits! You’re not in love with anyone except yourself: never have been, never will be.’

Troilus picked up one of the Charioteers, and rolled it back and forth in his hand. ‘You can go wherever you want,’ he murmured. ‘You can go from here to the far side of the board, and from far right to far left if you’ve got a clear path, and then turn round and come back. And all the time, you probably think you’re free, and you don’t even realise that the player is playing you, and decides when to use you to take other pieces, and when to let you be taken.’

‘But that player doesn’t know whether the Charioteer will be taken,’ pointed out Cressida. ‘He doesn’t know whether the other player is going to bother to take it or not.’

‘Unless there’s something else playing the players,’ said Troilus. ‘I don’t know whether you’d call it Zeus, or Destiny, or the stars, or something else, but I know I don’t know what it’s planning to do, any more than this little gold Charioteer knows how he’s going to be played.’

‘For Athene’s sake, it’s a lump of metal!’ cried Penthesilea. ‘Playing-pieces don’t need to know or think or feel or choose. We are, and we do. You chose to leave Troy, and so did Achilles; here you are. Helen chose not to go to Troy; here she is. I chose to stay overnight on an island that turned out to have a sphinx on it; here I am. Helen chose to go to Troy after all; we’ve chosen to accompany her. Now, in the meantime, I could do with another drink, and after that, who wants a game of Lions? I’ll put one of my pieces aside at the start, if you like, to give the other player a sporting chance. After all, I’ve got a lot more experience.’

‘I told you, you can’t conscript my pieces to fight for your side,’ said Penthesilea, several hours later. ‘No human shields, no conscripting captured pieces or bribing them to turn traitor, no making your own pieces depose or assassinate each other, and no tying my pieces to your Charioteer’s wheels and dragging them across the battlefield to knock over other pieces. Okay?’

‘Okay, if you insist,’ said Achilles. ‘I’m not going to waste my time arguing with a woman. But if you’re going to block all my good ideas like that, I think you ought to forfeit some more of your pieces at the start. Shall we say – your Amazon and your Spearman, Archer, and Charioteer on the Amazons’ side of the board?’’

Penthesilea had no particular wish to waste her time arguing with Achilles, either. She was quite enjoying the challenge of winning at Lions with a smaller army each time, and she had won four games outright, apart from the ones which had been abandoned because of arguments over the rules, or, to be more precise, because of Achilles’ tendency to invent new rules as he went along while ‘forgetting’ any existing rules that he didn’t feel like following. It was like playing with a three-year-old. Penthesilea didn’t have any children of her own yet, but the Amazons were strong believers in the extended family, and she had spent some of her happiest hours between wars playing with young nieces, cousins, or neighbours’ children, or making up silly stories about spiders and tortoises and monkeys. Achilles, even at his most unreasonable and patronising – no, Penthesilea corrected herself, especially when he was being deliberately unreasonable and annoying, to see how she would react – had the same air of a bright, cheerful, mischievous child about him. Penthesilea began to wonder whether to have a child by him. She wouldn’t expect him to be involved in bringing it up – for that matter, she didn’t intend to be involved very much herself, when there were any number of loving aunties to look after the child, and other children to play with it. But it would be nice to have one, all the same.

Achilles was wondering how to open a game, and whether it was even worth bothering if he had to play within rules, when he noticed Patroclus walking sleepily down the beach towards him, holding onto Briseis’s arm for support. Patroclus was very pale and thin, but looking much better for having slept. ‘Hi, Achilles,’ he called. ‘I didn’t know you knew how to play Lions.’

‘He doesn’t,’ said Penthesilea. ‘That’s why I’m having to teach him very, very slowly.’

‘That’s not true!’ retorted Achilles. ‘It’s just that I keep coming up with too many new tactics for this girl to cope with. It’s the advantage of coming to the game with no preconceived ideas, you see.’

‘Well, you’re out of the running, anyway, Patroclus,’ said Thersites. ‘Now your boyfriend’s met another queen, she’s showing him the right way to Mate.’

‘Oh, don’t talk rubbish,’ said Patroclus. ‘You know perfectly well Achilles is going to marry Briseis, as soon as we get home to Pthia.’

‘I never said that,’ protested Achilles. ‘You were the one who promised her my hand in marriage.’

‘You agreed.’

‘Please, don’t argue about it,’ pleaded Briseis. ‘I really don’t want to marry Achilles if he doesn’t want to marry me...’

‘WHAT? I destroyed your entire town, killed your parents, all your brothers and your fiancé, spared just your life and brought you to my tent, stood up to Agamemnon when he wanted to take you from me, brought you all the way here, and now you’ve got the nerve to tell me that you don’t even want to marry me?’

‘Quite right, too!’ said Penthesilea. ‘Why should she have to marry you? Why should any woman have to get married at all?’

‘This wasn’t what we came to argue about,’ said Patroclus apologetically. ‘I just wanted to say, I’m feeling much better now, and can Briseis and I come to the feast with the rest of you? It’s probably best if we stick together, after all.’

‘Oooh, now who’s jealous?’ called Thersites. ‘You don’t trust Achilles on his own, do you?’

‘Shut up, Thersites. Yes, come along, if Penthesilea’s okay with that.’

‘Of course I am; you’re all welcome. And Briseis, if you get fed up with all this male company, you’re more than welcome to stay with us.’ Penthesilea glanced at the sky. ‘It’s pretty nearly sundown now, so they’ll be expecting us. Let’s get a move on.’


	14. Chapter 14

The feast was a great success, everyone agreed. The island had been full of game before the sphinx had turned virtually every creature it met into stone, and so, with the passing of the sphinx, a great many stone statues had been startled to find themselves turned back into animals and birds, and even more surprised to be turned into dinner shortly afterwards. Many of the courses were things the Greeks hadn’t thought of eating, but at least none of them seemed to be human flesh, nor – to Achilles’ relief – fish.

‘This is nice,’ said Cressida. ‘What is it?’

‘Tortoise in peanut sauce,’ said Penthesilea.

‘It’s even better than the smoked porcupine. Could I have the recipe?’

‘I’d never had tortoise before,’ said Achilles. ‘Is that what I’m eating? The one in the spicy sauce?’

‘No, that’s chicken,’ said another Amazon.

Achilles’ eyes widened in alarm. ‘I’m eating a bird? Something that pecks in the dust? That’s disgusting! Why didn’t you warn me?’

‘Take no notice, she’s just teasing you,’ said Penthesilea. ‘It’s crocodile really.’

‘Oh, that’s okay then. I must say, you Amazons have got the right idea about meals. Plenty of meat, and a few bits of fruit in between courses, but not overdoing it. Most of the women back home in Greece think a solid meal is a cheese and olive salad with a lump of bread, and maybe a few anchovies.’

‘That’s no way to feed a fighter,’ agreed Penthesilea.

‘Is it the other way round in your tribe?’ asked Achilles. ‘With the men staying at home and wanting people to eat more salad, and the women going out to fight and coming home and demanding meat?’

‘Oh, we don’t keep a lot of men,’ said Penthesilea. ‘We’ve learnt from the bees and the ants: if you’ve got a queen in charge, and women doing the work, all you need is a few males to breed from. So we tend to keep just the strongest of the boy-children, and leave the rest in the wilderness for the lions.’

‘That’s terrible,’ said Cressida. ‘They can’t help being born boys, can they? None of us can help being what we are.’

‘So? What about all the tribes where they prefer boys to girls, and leave unwanted baby daughters to die? We’re just evening up the balance a bit.’

‘Isn’t “the Lions” the name of the tribe next door to you?’ asked Helen. ‘The ones who wear lion-skins, the way you hyena-skins?’

‘That’s right. I suppose our ancestors tossed with theirs for a totem animal, and we won. After all, hyenas might not look as noble as lions, or roar as loudly, but they’re deadlier, better disciplined, and they’ve got jaws that can crunch bones. Mind you, the Lion tribe are a lot more soft-hearted than they’d want you to think. They’re good to children – boys, anyway. They’re not so fond of daughters – in fact, sometimes they’ll even abandon baby girls in the wilderness.’

‘Is that near where you leave the baby boys?’ suggested Cressida.

‘Fairly near. That’s why we generally leave them without a nappy on, and the Lions do the same, so everyone knows what they’re taking home.’

‘But how do you actually bring up babies?’ asked Cressida. ‘Do you feed them on cows’ milk or goats’ milk as soon as they’re born?’

‘What? Of course not! Newborn babies can’t drink cows’ milk! They need women to feed them.’

‘But – well, I always thought Amazons cut off just one of their – I mean, if you cut them both off, then how...?’ Cressida gave up, in case her question seemed rude.

Penthesilea roared with laughter. ‘By Demeter, you didn’t think all our tribe were Amazons, did you? We’re just the soldiers! I told you, it’s like a nest of ants or bees: some women birth to babies, other women bring them up, some go out growing crops or herding cattle or hunting game or gathering fruit to feed the tribe, and some fight to protect the tribe. You see, you can have anything you want out of life, but you can’t have everything you want.’

‘But what if what you have isn’t what you want?’ asked Cressida. ‘What if you were born to be an Amazon queen, but you’d rather stay at home and bring up children?’

‘Then you don’t make yourself an Amazon, and you stay at home and bring up children. Nobody has to become an Amazon just because her mother and grandmother were Amazons. But the point is, if you want to be a soldier, you can’t prove that you have the right to shed your enemy’s blood until you’ve shown that you have the courage to wound your own flesh, and cauterise the wounds, without screaming. But, obviously, that means that if you decide to have children later on, you’ll need to give them to another woman to nurse. And if you want to feed babies, that means deciding not to become an Amazon. Not everyone can do everything.’

‘But why can’t everyone have a family and a career? I always thought you Amazons were free, because you didn’t have to do what men said.’

‘We are free: as free as the goddesses themselves. Think about their choices. Athene and Artemis choose to be single and not have children, to concentrate on being goddesses of war or of hunting; Hestia chooses to be single and stay at home, guarding the hearth-fire. Demeter chooses to be a single mother, and be driven mad with grief for half of every year, when her daughter is gone from her; Persephone chooses to compromise, spending half the year in the sunlight and the growing crops with her mother, and the other half ruling the realm of the dead with her husband. Hera chooses to submit to marriage with Zeus, in order to be queen of the gods; Aphrodite chooses to have affairs with many gods and men, never being bound to one partner, and never having a very settled family life. Choosing one path means choosing not to take another.’

‘And plenty of goddesses don’t bring up their own children, either,’ added Achilles. ‘My mum was foster-mum to Hephaestus the god of metalwork, before I was born, because Hera, his own mother, had abandoned him. But then she got married to my dad and had me, and then they split up when I was a baby, so I suppose I must have been fed by a wet-nurse. I don’t remember her, though. I just remember Phoenix, and Patroclus.’

‘You did have a nurse: a girl called Chloe,’ said Phoenix. ‘But you didn’t like having anyone except me looking after you, so I took over doing everything except feeding you, and as soon as you were on solid food, your dad gave Chloe her freedom. He said she’d more than earned it. She married Alexander, the blacksmith.’

‘I remember Alexander,’ said Achilles. ‘I remember sitting in his forge, watching while he shod a horse. I remember he used to pray to Hephaestus, but he wouldn’t believe me when I told him that my mum had looked after Hephaestus when he was a baby.’ He paused. ‘Was I that much of a brat? If my mum couldn’t stand me and Chloe couldn’t either?’

‘You know it wasn’t your fault,’ said Phoenix. ‘Your mum – well, she’s a goddess, and it took her a long time to get used to the idea that her child was a mortal. And you were miserable after she’d gone, and wouldn’t settle unless I was cuddling you. But I didn’t mind. I’d always wished I could get married and have children of my own, but that didn’t work out, so – well, having you and Patroclus to look after, and having you dribbling on me and being sick all over me and screaming blue murder if I tried to put you down, was the next best thing.’

‘You were a little horror,’ said Patroclus affectionately. ‘You were always swiping my toys, and biting if I put my hand in your cot to take them back. Honestly, I don’t know why I love you.’

‘And what about you?’ asked Briseis. ‘Did Achilles’ parents adopt you when you were a baby?’

‘No, I was banished from my home kingdom when I was nine,’ said Patroclus. ‘I took refuge in King Peleus’s palace, but that was after Thetis had left.’

‘Nine?’ exclaimed Briseis, wide-eyed. ‘You couldn’t have done anything bad enough to deserve that, could you? Not when you were a child.’

‘I’d killed another child, a boy called Andreas,’ said Patroclus flatly. ‘I didn’t mean to, of course; we’d had a fight because he was cheating at marbles, and I hadn’t meant to do more than give him a black eye and make him give back the marbles he’d won, but we were fighting on the edge of a cliff, and I accidentally knocked him over the edge. I knew I ought to go and tell a grown-up, in case they could rescue Andreas if he wasn’t quite dead yet, and at the very least I ought to tell Andreas’s parents what had happened. But if I had, they’d have killed me, in revenge. So I just panicked, and ran away, without even leaving a message to tell my parents why I’d gone.’

‘And you walked all the way to another kingdom on your own?’ Briseis was now impressed as well as shocked. ‘I’d never have had the courage to do that when I was nine. I don’t think I would even now.’

‘Well, I wasn’t on my own for very long. It might have been a few days, maybe a few weeks, but I don’t really remember very much about that bit. I met Phoenix on the road, because his father had banished him and he was looking for a new home, too. Phoenix protected me until we came to Pthia, but he made sure I sent a letter back to my parents to let them know I was safe, as soon as King Peleus had agreed to give us refuge.’

‘I don’t remember my dad being around when I was little, either,’ said Achilles. ‘I think he was mostly off on quests and adventures, like going in search of the Golden Fleece with Jason and the other Argonauts. My mum used to come and visit occasionally, and sometimes she brought other sea-nymphs with her, or other gods like Hephaestus, but mostly I was just with Phoenix and Patroclus. They’re my real family.’

‘I didn’t know about that,’ said Cressida. ‘In Troy, there was a rumour that you’d been brought up by a centaur in a cave somewhere, or something. We thought that must be why you were much stronger than an ordinary man.’

Achilles laughed. ‘Oh, no, that was much later – I’d have been about thirteen by then. Cheiron was another one who came to my dad for help, when people tried to stone him to death for practising medicine, because centaurs weren’t allowed to treat humans.’

‘But why not?’ asked Troilus. ‘I always thought centaurs were much wiser than humans, and knew a lot about medicine and the stars and prophecy and things.’

‘Well – some do,’ said Achilles. ‘But a lot of the ones in Greece aren’t very interested in anything much except drinking and sex – they’re a lot like the satyrs, really, but they’re much bigger and stronger, and they can be dangerous fighters. And because of that, when Cheiron was a colt, no centaurs were allowed to go to school with humans, in case they caused trouble, so Cheiron hadn’t been able to qualify formally as a doctor. But he was allowed to work as a vet, and that involved treating other centaurs, and other half-human creatures like satyrs and fauns and werewolves, as well as horses and cows and dogs. And, obviously, a werewolf in full human mode isn’t any different from a normal human, so he’d learnt quite as much about treating humans as any human doctor knew – or even more, because he’d lived so much longer than any human – and he wouldn’t turn away humans who came to him for help because their own doctors couldn’t cure them. So the doctors were jealous, and they wanted to have Cheiron slaughtered and used for dog-food, like any other animal that’s become dangerous and uncontrollable.’

‘What did your father do?’ asked Cressida.

‘Well, Cheiron had taken refuge in the palace gardens, so my dad told the doctors that as the centaur was a wild animal that was currently on his land, it was his property. He said, as it didn’t have an owner, he didn’t have to buy it, and he intended to tame it and keep it as a pet for me, and we would be responsible for its behaviour in future. And when the doctors had gone, my dad went and explained the situation to Cheiron, and offered to build him a luxury stable and bring him anything he needed – healing herbs, scientific instruments or anything else – if he’d stay on our grounds. So Cheiron was happy to stay with us, and he did his best to pass on some of his learning to Patroclus and me, but Patroclus was much better than I was at learning things like medicine and mathematics and astronomy. I just wanted to learn how to fight and how to play the lyre and tell stories.’

‘But I thought you said centaurs weren’t allowed to practise medicine,’ pointed out Cressida.

‘They weren’t allowed to practise it,’ said Patroclus. ‘Nobody had thought to make a law saying centaurs couldn’t teach medicine. In fact, by the time we left for Troy, Cheiron had started a school teaching lots of trainee doctors about medical ethics and how to deal with epidemics, and why they mustn’t pass on anything a patient had told them in private. Even the doctors who used to make fun of him respect him now, and they’ve started calling him “Hippocrates” – the Horse-Master.’

‘He’s not half as wise as he thinks he is,’ said Achilles. ‘He won’t accept anything that’s happened that doesn’t fit in with what he thinks the laws of nature are. When Heracles told him what had happened to Alcestis and Admetus, all Cheiron would say was that dead people don’t come back to life, and Alcestis must just have been unconscious and then recovered. Even when the god Apollo himself told us what Alcestis had done for her husband, Cheiron just said there was probably a polluted well or something that gave Admetus and Alcestis an infection, but that by now they’d developed immunity, and there was nothing supernatural about it. He’s got no poetry in his soul, that centaur.’

‘What did Alcestis do?’ asked Penthesilea.

‘Well,’ Achilles began, ‘this is what Apollo told me...’


	15. Chapter 15

It’s hard to say where the story of Alcestis starts (began Achilles). Apollo, the god of music, archery and prophecy, of light and youth, was forced to become a slave to a mortal man. Why was that? Because he had been angry with his father, Zeus, and killed several of the ogres who forged Zeus’s thunderbolts, and the remainder had lost interest in thunderbolt manufacture and decided to go and live on an island somewhere and eat shipwrecked mariners instead. Why had Apollo been so angry with Zeus? Because Zeus had killed Apollo’s son, Asclepius the doctor. Why had Zeus done that? Because Asclepius had raised a young man called Hippolytus from the dead, when he was destined to die young, and had helped him escape to Italy, where he may still be living now, for all I know. But why was it wrong for Asclepius to restore Hippolytus’s life, when Hippolytus hadn’t done anything to deserve death? And, considering Apollo is the god of prophecy, why didn’t he know that his son Asclepius would become a god of medicine after his death, and have temples where sick people could come to be healed?

The trouble with a story is that it’s like a loose thread of brightly-coloured wool in a tapestry, and when you start pulling at it, you find that it starts unravelling all the other threads that seem to be parts of completely different stories. I suppose if you wanted to understand why the gods don’t allow humans to live forever, you’d have to go back before Zeus was born, back to when Zeus’s father Cronos was king of the gods, and people were living in the Golden Age, picking fruit where they found it, and never working or quarrelling. But then, even when human beings were happy and good, Cronos himself was a monster, swallowing his children alive as soon as soon as they were born because he was terrified that one of them would grow up to overthrow him. And if you want to understand why Cronos was like that, you’d have to go back to when he rebelled against his own father, the Sky-Father. And if we could understand that, I suppose we’d understand everything about why the world is such a mess now. But as it is, we can’t.

At any rate, one day about thirty years ago, a young god called Apollo was standing in the slave-market of Pherae in Thessaly, disguised as a man, and wondering who would buy him. He knew he was sentenced to serve six years, and be set free in the seventh year. In the meantime, he wasn’t allowed to let anyone know that he was a god, nor to use any supernatural powers: not even to conjure up warmth, if his owner made him sleep in a draughty shed, or to keep rats from stealing his food, and certainly not to take vengeance on anyone who ill-treated him. He hoped he would be bought by somebody kind, preferably someone with a pretty teenage daughter – or a handsome teenage son, for that matter; he didn’t mind which, as long as they had very loose morals. 

But in his heart, Apollo knew that life was never that easy for gods and heroes who were forced to be slaves. This was at the same time that Heracles was forced to be the slave of King Eurystheus and perform one exhausting, nearly-impossible task after another, usually involving killing or capturing various man-eating monsters. Every time Apollo had seen Heracles in the last few years, he had been looked more tired and had a few more scars than last time, and was usually on the point of collapsing with exhaustion after strangling a huge lion, or struggling to fight a many-headed sea-serpent and a giant crab at the same time, or stinking of cow-dung after mucking out a cowshed that hadn’t been cleaned in years. Apollo tried to prophesy whether he’d be sold to a master as harsh as Eurystheus, but all he could see was that he had no control over it whatsoever.

As it turned out, the man who bought Apollo was a kindly man called Admetus who was looking for a new shepherd. The work wasn’t glamorous, but Apollo was good with animals, and he liked having a job that gave him plenty of time to sit out on the hillside, and compose a song while he made sure the sheep didn’t wander off, and kept his bow and arrow ready to shoot marauding bears and lions. The sheep seemed to like the sound of Apollo’s voice, and they were willing to follow him anywhere, so that he hardly ever needed to use the sheepdogs to round them up. Sometimes Pan, the god of shepherds, came to visit him, and the two gods would play duets, Apollo singing and playing a lyre while Pan accompanied him on a reed flute. 

And so the years passed, and Apollo grew strong and suntanned, working out of doors all summer. In the winter, when the sheep were brought into the barn, Alcestis used to invite Apollo and the other farm workers to come into the house to be with her family, and Apollo sang and played to them every night after dinner. Alcestis was very kind to all the servants – she was like a mother to the whole household – and Apollo grew very fond of her and Admetus, and their two children. There was a boy called Eumelus, who was a baby when Apollo first became Admetus’s slave, and a girl called – well, I can’t remember her name...

(‘Typical!’ snorted Penthesilea. ‘You can remember the son’s name all right!’

‘I know Eumelus because I fought alongside him at Troy,’ said Achilles. ‘But he didn’t mention what his sister was called. And anyway, this story is about Admetus and Alcestis, not their children, so it doesn’t matter what their names were.’

‘But wasn’t Apollo in love with Admetus’s daughter?’ asked Troilus.

‘I don’t know. She was a good bit older than Eumelus, so she might have been sixteen or seventeen by the time Apollo left. But I don’t know whether she was particularly pretty, and besides, when Apollo had come to care for the whole family, perhaps he wouldn’t have wanted to screw up Alcestis’s daughter’s whole life by getting her pregnant. If he’d been just disguised as a man for a day, cruising round trying to pick up girls, he wouldn’t have thought twice about it, and certainly wouldn’t have stayed around until the baby was born. But now that he was actually living as a man, and could see how difficult life could be for a single parent, it was a different matter. So, if he was in love with Admetus’s daughter, he suffered in silence and didn’t tell her. Anyway...)

‘Towards the end of his time of slavery, Apollo began to feel his power of prophecy coming back to him. He couldn’t see clearly – not the way he could when he was a god – but he had a very strong feeling that Admetus or someone else was going to die soon. Sometimes Apollo was sure that Admetus must die soon, even though he looked perfectly healthy now and there were no wars going on or anything else that seemed likely to kill him. But at other times, it seemed that maybe Admetus could be spared, if Apollo could only work out how. 

Still, he didn’t have much time to think about it, as he was still busy working with the sheep, and had to try and sort out the problems of a baby lamb whose mother had rejected him. For several weeks, the outcast lamb wandered from one ewe to another, trying to steal a mouthful of milk from each before they recognised him and pushed him away, and growing thinner and weaker all the time. And then, one day, another lamb, her mother’s darling, wandered away from the flock. Apollo went to look for her, singing to let her know he was on his way, but before he could find the little ewe-lamb, she had strangled herself on a thorn-bush and was stone dead. Apollo was wondering how to tell the distraught mother what had happened, when he heard a plaintive bleat and looked down to see the little outcast lamb, who had followed him. Although the outcast was a week older than the dead stray lamb, he was so thin that he was much smaller, and Apollo quickly skinned the dead lamb and tied its skin around the living one, like a sheepskin jacket, and then picked him up and carried him back to the grieving ewe. There, the god put him down, and said, ‘Ewe, behold your lamb,’ and, ‘Lamb, behold your dam.’ The ewe sniffed the lamb suspiciously, but he smelled like her own lamb, and so she decided he was as nearly her own lamb as made no difference, and settled down to let him have a good, long drink of warm milk. As sheep aren’t very clever, neither of them ever thought about how or why they’d acquired a family, which was probably just as well. And while they were getting to know each other, Apollo cooked the body of the dead lamb very thoroughly before feeding it to the sheepdogs, to make sure they didn’t recognise it as meat and start getting ideas about eating the rest of their flock. Sheepdogs are a lot brighter than sheep, but a clever god can still fool them without too much trouble.

By sunset, Apollo was exhausted, and he lay down on the ground and went to sleep. As he slept, he dreamed that he saw Death, scythe in hand, stalking among the sleeping flocks (including one very well-fed lamb in a fleece hoodie) down towards Admetus’s house.

Apollo stood up to bar his way. ‘You aren’t coming for Admetus already, are you?’ he asked.

 _No,_ said Death. _This is merely a premonition. As a matter of fact, I am currently in Colchis, where a hero is fighting a dragon. In fact, someone here is due to die in... (he took an hourglass out of a pocket in his robe and examined the sands falling through it) approximately forty-seven days, thirteen hours and twenty-four minutes. This, of course, will be around mid-morning. I’m afraid I won’t be able to get here until late afternoon, though. There’s going to be a particularly horrible civil war in Thebes, with two brothers killing each other fighting for the throne. But if you leave the grave open until sunset, I’ll collect the soul when I’m passing._

‘And what if I don’t?’ asked Apollo. ‘What happens if I stay and try to stop you?’

Death shrugged. _Then I must come, all the same. Men, women and children die; animals die; trees die; virtually everything that can live, dies. Except you Greek gods,_ he added, irritated. _Norse gods, now, they know how to die tragically. Babylonian vegetation-gods die and rise from the dead on a regular basis; Egyptian gods retire to the Underworld because that’s where most of their believers are; Hindu gods keep being born, dying and being reincarnated, because they’re all incarnations of the same god. But you Greek gods seem to think that just because you’re immortal, it means you can’t die._

Apollo didn’t argue about this, because he was busy gazing at the outcast lamb sleeping snuggled up to its new mother. ‘That lamb is going to live because another lamb died,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Do you actually need Admetus to die in forty-seven days, or could someone else die in his place? Someone older, maybe? A rich old man or woman who’s saved up plenty of money for a really impressive funeral?’

Death shook his head. _I assure you, rich old people who have lavish funerals never succeed in taking it with them. Not even Egyptians. My orders are to collect one adult human soul from Pherae in Thessaly, in forty-seven days, thirteen hours and twenty-one minutes._

‘But if it’s Admetus, what’s he supposed to die of?’ insisted Apollo. ‘He’s young, he’s healthy. Why should he have to die just because you want to take him?’

 _I never said I wanted to take him_ , said Death, _and I don’t know how he’s going to die. Perhaps he will fall out of his chariot. Perhaps the roof of his house will fall in on him. Perhaps one of his dogs will go mad and bite him. Or perhaps Admetus won’t die for many years yet, if someone else agrees to die in his place, in forty-seven days, thirteen hours and nineteen minutes. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got work to get on with in Colchis. The hero has succeeded in killing his dragon, and is now fighting a fairly large army of soldiers who have sprouted from the dragon’s teeth. He’ll slay them, too, of course – never mind that they didn’t want to fight him, and that they were conjured into existence only so that the hero could fight them. Your friend Admetus should think himself lucky he’s had a life at all_.

And with that, Death vanished, and Apollo woke up. He checked that the sheep were okay, and then went back to sleep.

In the morning, Apollo told Admetus about the strange dream he’d had. Admetus, in turn, told his parents, and asked them if they’d mind dying for him, as they were old anyway and couldn’t have much longer to live, but they told him to get lost. He tried asking all his friends in turn, and, when none of them volunteered, at last Alcestis asked if she could die for him. Admetus thanked her...

(‘He didn’t!’ exclaimed Troilus. ‘Letting his lady die for him!’

‘Of course he did!’ retorted Penthesilea. ‘That’s what men expect – if a man doesn’t actually ask his wife to die for him, he’ll cheerfully let her wear her life out doing his housework and bearing his children. And if women keep on being willing to sacrifice themselves, men will go on expecting it as their due.’

‘Decent men don’t,’ said Troilus. ‘I’d die for Cressida, any day. And Achilles would lay down his life for Briseis, wouldn’t you?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Achilles honestly. ‘Probably not for Briseis. She’s a nice girl, but if I was going to die for a woman, she’d have to be – well, just amazing, like Athene and Hera and Aphrodite and Demeter rolled into one. Or I’d have to be so much in love with her that I thought she was worth dying for, even if she wasn’t really. But Alcestis...)


	16. Chapter 16

I don’t know (continued Achilles) whether Alcestis really thought Admetus was the most wonderful man who ever lived, and deserved dying for. But she knew that he had a horror of dying young, and that she could bear dying more bravely than he could, but that if she lived, she would miss Admetus more than he would miss her if she died.

So Alcestis grew weaker and weaker as the day of her death approached, and for three days before her death, she wasn’t able to get up from her bed. It was a solid wooden bedstead built into the wall, where Admetus’s father, Pheres, had built the bedroom for Admetus’s mother. Admetus had been born in it, and it had become his bedroom when he came of age and his parents retired to a cottage a couple of miles away. He and Alcestis had made love there on their wedding night, on the linen cloth Alcestis had woven as a wedding present. She had given birth to their children there, and now she was even more exhausted and in more pain than either of the children had given her, groaning and tossing from one side of the double bed to the other, while Admetus slept in the spare room.

But, on the morning of her death, Alcestis rallied. She sat up, then staggered out of bed, and to make herself wake up properly, she forced herself to walk down to the stream and fetch a jug of fresh, cold spring water. She brought it back to the bedroom, washed in icy cold water until her teeth were chattering, and rubbed herself dry with a rough towel to try to rub some colour back into her skin, and put on her favourite dress, and the necklace that Admetus had given her when they were courting. She wasn’t afraid, but everything seemed much sharper than before, and she couldn’t stop thinking, ‘This is the last time I’ve got up. This is the last time I’ll have a wash. This is the last time I’ll get dressed.’ 

She began to feel dizzy just at standing upright with so many last times whirling round her, and she collapsed at the foot of the bed, and decided to say her last prayers while she was down there. So she prayed to Hestia the goddess of the hearth to protect her home, and to Hera the goddess of marriage to send her daughter a good husband and her son a good wife. And then she pulled herself upright on the bedpost, and went downstairs to kiss everyone goodbye for the last time: Admetus, and the children, and all the servants (except Apollo, who had completed his term of slavery and returned to Heaven by then), and then, leaning on Admetus’s arm, she walked outside to see the sunlight for the last time. 

Alcestis could see the clouds scudding past, and she seemed to see the boat of Charon, the Ferryman to the Underworld, in between them. As she sank down to the ground, Admetus knelt down to be with her, and Alcestis lifted her head a little, and said, ‘Darling, just promise me one thing, won’t you? Don’t get married again. I don’t want some stepmother ill-treating my children. Promise?’

Admetus said, ‘I promise. I couldn’t find a wife as wonderful as you anywhere, so what’s the point? I won’t bring any woman into the house you’ve left, except the people who live here now: not a new serving-maid who might tempt me, not a visitor, not even my daughter’s friends – and certainly not my mother, the hard-hearted bitch! Why did she and my father refuse to die, and leave it to you in all your youth? Well, Alcestis, your eternal beauty shall never fade. I’ll have the finest sculptor in all Greece carve a statue of you out of pure white marble, and I’ll carry it into our bedroom and lay it in the bed, so that when I wake and find myself alone, I can reach out and hug your image. I’ll never allow wine or good food or music in my house again, and we’ll all cut off our hair in mourning for you – I’ll even shear off the manes of my horses. Nothing is too good for you, and nothing can have any joy when you’re dead. Oh, Alcestis, please say you’ll make a home for us in the Underworld, so that I can join you when I come down? Will you do that? Will you?’

But Alcestis didn’t answer, because she was dead. In fact, her head had dropped back, dead, as soon as Admetus had said, ‘I promise,’ but he hadn’t been looking at her, and hadn’t noticed.

They lifted her body – it was pitifully light – into a funeral chariot, drawn by six black horses, to drive it to the cemetery. As the chariot drove off, Admetus and his household changed into black clothes and cut off all their hair, and were about to walk to the cemetery for the funeral, when Heracles walked up the drive, tired and hot and sweaty and thirsty and, as usual, hungry. He’d had a long walk from King Eurystheus’s palace, on the way to yet another nearly-impossible task, but he was whistling at the thought of seeing his friends Admetus and Alcestis again, and staying a couple of nights with them.

‘Hi, Admetus!’ he called cheerfully. ‘How are – oh. I see. I’m sorry, I’ve chosen a bad time, haven’t I?’

‘Oh no, not at all,’ said Admetus. ‘I mean, we’re going to a funeral, a friend of the family has died, but we’ll be back by dinner time, and in the meantime...’ – he gestured to a servant – ‘Linus here will get you a drink and get your lunch ready. The spare room’s all ready, if you want to have a wash and lie down for a bit first.’

Heracles said, ‘Well, thanks, if you’re sure that’s okay? Hey, where’s Alcestis? Is she okay – hang on, she’s not dead, is she?’

Admetus didn’t want to talk about it, especially to Heracles, who had more than enough problems of his own without worrying about other people’s. But on the other hand, he didn’t really like to lie to his friend either. He looked at his feet and mumbled, ‘Well, sort of.’

‘What do you mean, sort of? I know she’s agreed to die in your place, but either she’s dead now or she isn’t. She can’t be just a little bit dead!’

‘Yes, well, it’s not that simple,’ said Admetus. ‘I mean, if we know she’s fated to die soon, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it, then, in a sense, she is dead.’

Heracles wasn’t a philosopher by nature. As far as he was concerned, ‘dead,’ meant, ‘what a lion is when I’ve strangled it, skinned it with its own claws and made the skin into a coat.’ So he just shrugged and said, ‘Well, at least she’s alive now, so you’ve got to make the most of that. If she’s not well, do you think she’d like it if I went out and got some grapes and flowers and things?’

‘No, no, you don’t need to worry about that,’ said Admetus hurriedly. ‘She’s very tired and mostly just wants to sleep at the moment, so it’s best if we don’t disturb her. And you look as though you could do with a rest yourself, so just go on in, make yourself at home, you know where everything is. I’ll be with you as soon as possible. Linus, go and get Heracles a drink.’

So Linus led Heracles inside, while Admetus, his children, and the other servants went to Alcestis’s funeral. When they arrived at the cemetery, they found Admetus’s father, Pheres, already there. Admetus glared at him, and snapped, ‘What are you doing here?’

‘I’ve come to offer my sympathy,’ said Pheres. ‘Alcestis was a fine woman. They don’t make them like her any more.’

‘Oh, yes?’ spat Admetus. ‘And how much sympathy did you have when I begged you to have mercy on me?’

But at this point they were interrupted by the priest of Hades, who had come to conduct the funeral service. ‘Dearly beloved...’ he began.

‘Well, that rules that man out, then!’ exclaimed Admetus. ‘That vulture there who calls himself my father, who’s come to gloat now my wife is dead. He’s not beloved of anyone except himself. And you can tell my so-called mother the same goes for her!’

‘Oh, I see,’ said Pheres. ‘And how dearly beloved was your wife, when you asked her to die for you?’

‘We are gathered together...’ went on the priest.

‘She’d still be alive if it hadn’t been for you!’ shouted Admetus. ‘At your age you should be glad of the release! You’re always complaining about your arthritis and your rheumatism and your sciatica, but when you get the chance to go somewhere none of those exist, you shy away!’

‘Well?’ retorted Pheres. ‘If you like being alive, do you think I don’t? What are you planning to do? Live for ever, if you can find a succession of wives stupid enough to die for you?’

‘We are gathered to mourn the passing of a remarkable woman...’

‘I don’t want to see you ever again!’ yelled Admetus. ‘I’m divorcing my parents! And I want the priest here to put that in writing!’

The priest gave up, and said, ‘This is ridiculous. I’ll conduct the funeral tomorrow, if you’ve calmed down by then. In the meantime, shout at each other somewhere else and don’t disturb the dead.’ And he turned and walked away. Pheres stormed off as well. Eumelus was crying, and his big sister was trying to comfort him, but everyone else was silent. The servants were standing, silent with sorrow and shock. And as he stood there, looking down at his wife’s coffin, Admetus began to realise what a selfish pig he was. He knelt down beside the grave, too miserable even to cry, and muttered, ‘Oh, gods. What have I done?’ But by then, of course, it was too late.

Meanwhile, back at the house, Heracles had demolished several pounds of roast beef, a jar of pickled olives and half a dozen bunches of grapes, and was now drinking his way through his third bottle of wine and singing raucously,

‘When the princess dismembered her brother and fled,

Was it Eros who lured her to Jason’s sweet bed?

It was Bacchus who crept up beside her and said,

“Have some Madeira, Medea!”’

Linus was beginning to wonder how long he could stand it. It was bad enough that Alcestis was dead, and that he hadn’t even been able to go to her funeral, without having to be polite to this cheerful barbarian in a lion-skin, who kept banging the table and shouting for more food or more wine. 

‘And another thing,’ Heracles yelled, ‘for Dionysus’s sake, cheer up and stop looking like a depressed tortoise! Buck up, bring me another drink, and have one yourself! Look, I’m as much a slave as you are, even if I am the son of Zeus, but I don’t go round looking miserable about it all the time! Only difference is, your master lets you stay in a nice cool house with nothing to do except serve people drinks, while mine sends me out to capture one monster after another! You know what he wants now? I’ve got to tame a pair of man-eating horses from Thrace, harness them and drive them home. I just hope they don’t need mucking out, cowpats are bad enough, can you imagine what the dung of a natural herbivore that’s been fed nothing but meat is going to smell like? And then if I get that one right, I’ve still got to go down to the Underworld and bring back Hades’ guard-dog before I can earn my freedom. But in the meantime, I just want to have a few laughs along the way, have a good time with my friend Admetus, and what does he do? Buggers off to a funeral and leaves me with Miseriguts for company! For Hades’ sake, if that’s how he carries on when it’s just a friend of the family who’s died, how’s he going to act when Alcestis pegs out?’

Linus had been struggling to keep quiet, but at last he snapped, ‘If you must know, Alcestis died this morning. Admetus didn’t want to worry you by telling you, because he has some tact and consideration, unlike some people round here.’

Heracles rubbed his eyes. ‘You mean – like, actually died? Not just “sort of dead,” or “going to be dead,” but dead dead? Hang on – it wasn’t her funeral Admetus was going to, was it?’

Linus rolled his eyes, and nodded.

‘And he didn’t trust me to come with him? To be his friend when he needs one? To rescue Alcestis?’

Linus repeated, slowly and patiently, ‘Alcestis – is – dead. There’s no way on earth you could rescue her. And if you wanted to go to the funeral, it’ll be over by now, and Admetus will be coming home.’

Heracles picked up his club. ‘Never mind funerals,’ he said, ‘I’m going to pay my respects my own way.’ And he strode off.

Only a few minutes later, Admetus came plodding back from the cemetery, and stood helplessly by his front door, as if he’d forgotten how to open it. He didn’t know whether to go into his house, and sit with the absence of Alcestis, or to stand outside with the absence of Alcestis. He felt exhausted, but he couldn’t imagine going to sleep, lying down in Alcestis’s bed without Alcestis. He wondered why he’d talked all that rubbish about cuddling a statue in bed, as if he was a baby clutching at a rag-doll.

Eumelus pulled at his sleeve. ‘Daddy,’ he asked, ‘Is Mummy really dead, or just sort of dead?’

‘She’s really dead,’ said Eumelus.

‘Then why did you say to Uncle Heracles that she was only poorly?’

‘Well, because Uncle Heracles was very tired and he needed to rest. You know he has all these difficult jobs to do.’

Now it was his daughter’s turn to ask a question. ‘Dad, is it true that Heracles has to do all these labours because he went mad and killed his wife and children?’

‘Well – ye-es, but it was a long time ago, and he’s better now,’ said Admetus. ‘He wouldn’t hurt any of us, I’m sure.’

His daughter was still thinking. ‘When you and Granddad were shouting at each other, you said it was his fault mum died. So did Granddad go mad, like Heracles, and murder Mum?’

Admetus stared at the ground. ‘No,’ he said flatly. ‘I was just angry because it was really my fault. I killed your mother. I murdered Alcestis.’

At that point Heracles arrived back at the house, leading a veiled woman by the hand. ‘Admetus, you old liar, why in Hades’ name didn’t you tell me what was going on?’ he called. ‘You call yourself my friend, and you don’t even trust me enough to tell me when you’re grieving?’

‘Oh, gods, I’m sorry! I’m getting everything wrong – with Alcestis, with you, with my dad...’

‘Oh, forget it,’ said Heracles. ‘Look, to make up for it, you can do me a favour. When I left your house, I passed this sports competition, and they had some beautiful prizes: cows and horses for the races, and the prize for the wrestling was this woman. Well, I entered, and I won her, but I can’t very well take her all the way to Thrace with me, so I wondered if you’d mind looking after her? Keep her until I come back, or keep her for good, if you like.’

Admetus mumbled, ‘Well, I wasn’t really thinking of getting any more servant girls at the moment – I mean, it’s a bad time, without a wife to organise them...’

‘Well, there’s your answer, then!’ said Heracles. ‘I’ll give her her freedom, and then you can marry her. She was born a free woman, you know, but got captured. But she’d make you a lovely wife, and take good care of the kids, too.’

‘I can’t!’ moaned Admetus. ‘I’ve only just lost Alcestis – she’s not even buried yet, and you’re telling me to get married again at once! And besides, I promised Alcestis I’d never remarry. I’d never find anyone like her, and anyway, I don’t deserve a wife. This woman can stay here if she must, and I’ll tell the servants to take good care of her, but I’m not going to look at her, let alone marry her!’

‘Oh, for Hermes’ sake!’ said Heracles. ‘Is this how you treat all your guests? Shut away in the spare room, not allowed to see you or know what’s going on? She’s a stranger, she’s been a prisoner and been wrestled for, and now she’s got no home if you won’t offer her a place! Talk to her, not past her! Hold her hand, make her welcome!’

‘Uh – hello,’ said Admetus. ‘Would you, uh, like a drink, or anything to eat, or anything?’

The woman shook her head.

‘Would you like to have a bath, and put some fresh clothes on? You can take off that veil, if you like.’

At that, Alcestis smiled, and she pulled off her veil, and then hugged Admetus and the children and kissed them all, and cried.

‘What – what’s going on?’ blurted out Admetus.

‘I told you, I won her,’ said Heracles. ‘Look, when you come down to it, Death is just some big skeleton, right? I mean, I’ve killed snakes and lions with my bare hands, I’ve carried live wild boars and bulls on my shoulders for hundreds of miles, I’m not taking any nonsense from a skeleton! I knocked his scythe out of his finger-bones, threw him apart, and Alcestis and I were out of the graveyard before he had a chance to put himself back together.’

‘But – but Alcestis died,’ said Admetus. ‘This isn’t – some kind of zombie, is it?’

‘No, she’s very alive,’ said Heracles. ‘But I think you were right, after all. She’s had a tiring day, and could probably do with a lie-down. So I’ll go off and leave you lot in peace, and see you on my way back from Thrace. And he strode off, whistling.

(‘And was Alcestis just a zombie?’ asked Penthesilea suspiciously.

‘No, no. She was very quiet for the next three days, no talking or eating, but after that she was back to normal, Eumelus told me,’ said Achilles. ‘She and Admetus are probably still alive – they were when Eumelus left for Troy, at any rate.’

‘And is that how you Greeks prefer your women? Veiled and silent and barely alive?’

‘No, of course not! You’re deliberately missing the whole point of the story!’

‘Which is what? That women can’t cheat death but male heroes can? Or that cowardly husbands need the sort of wife they don’t deserve?’

Achilles looked around for support, but everyone apart from him and Penthesilea was asleep. ‘Whichever you prefer,’ he said sleepily. ‘Good night.’)


	17. Chapter 17

A little before sunset several months later, the Myrmidons and the Amazons drew their ships up onto a beach near the Greeks’ camp. The full moon was clearly visible in the evening sky, and Cressida was already in full wolf form. Since her encounter with the Sphinx, she hadn’t bothered hiding what she was, although she always found a private place to change. 

‘At last!’ said Helen. ‘I’m going to be with Menelaus tonight. And if he decides I’m getting on a bit and he’s not really interested any more, well, I’ve got some herbs here I can slip into his wine to make him change his mind.’

‘For Aphrodite’s sake, what do you see in him?’ snorted Penthesilea. ‘If we wait a couple more hours until they’re asleep, we Amazons can surround the camp, cut the throats of every male there and set the slave-girls free. Achilles, d’you want to join in?’

‘It’s tempting,’ said Achilles. ‘But the common soldiers don’t deserve that – they didn’t have much more choice about coming to Troy than the slave-girls did. And the officers are just fools like me who let Agamemnon and Odysseus convince them that coming to Troy to win glory disembowelling Trojans was the most heroic thing they could do. No, the only one I ever really wanted revenge on was Agamemnon, and now I don’t even want to kill him. I tell you what, though,’ he added, ‘I’d really like to scare him rigid. I’m going to go into the Mycenean’s part of the camp to see Agamemnon, flanked by his own heralds...’

‘Do we have to?’ groaned Talthybius.

‘Of course we’ll come,’ said Eurybates firmly. ‘We have to stay calm and not lose our heads.’

‘Sorry. Of course we’ll come,’ echoed Talthybius miserably.

‘You’ll enjoy it, I promise,’ said Achilles. ‘We’re going to invite Agamemnon to dinner...’

‘While the women stay here roasting an ox, I suppose,’ interrupted Penthesilea. ‘Typical!’

‘I’m happy to cook,’ said Patroclus, ‘but are you sure the cows we took from that last island aren’t magical? Only I’m sure it’s not normal for cows to glow golden in the dark, and if they belong to some god and he’s not happy about our eating them...’

‘Nonsense, it just means they’re really healthy,’ said Achilles. ‘Anyway, I’ll tell Agamemnon we’ve got Helen, invite him to come over, alone, and try to persuade her to come back to his brother. If he’s nervous, I can give him my word that not a man, Greek or Trojan, will lay a hand on him. But he’ll still be on edge on the way here, and if he happens to hear a werewolf howling,’ (Cressida wagged her tail eagerly) ‘and hears a Trojan prince talking to her, I think it could panic him into running, by sheer coincidence, into just the place where a band of Amazons happen to be waiting to ambush him. And then, when he pleads for mercy and tells me I can keep Briseis if I’ll just rescue him, and I tell him that I don’t need to ask his permission because I’ve set Briseis free...’

‘And that I’m getting married to Patroclus and going home to Pthia with him,’ put in Briseis helpfully.

‘Exactly, and that I’m sending Phoenix back with them to tell Neoptolemus he can be King of the Myrmidons now, because I’m abdicating to marry Penthesilea and go back to her country with her, but that Amazons don’t take orders from a man, so if he wants mercy he’ll have to beg Helen to plead with Penthesilea to spare me...’

‘And you’re just shoving Helen around like a game of Lions, are you?’ retorted Penthesilea. ‘What if Helen doesn’t want me to spare Agamemon?’

‘Of course I don’t want to spare him,’ said Helen. ‘He’s been an appalling husband to Clytemnestra, he started a completely pointless war, and he murdered my niece, my little Iphigenia. I want revenge, and I’m sure Clytemnestra does, too.’

Cressida howled, and then looked questioningly up at Troilus. ‘I think Cressida’s saying we should pardon Agamemnon anyway,’ said Troilus, who was learning to understand a little of werewolf language. Cressida nodded vigorously. ‘I mean, we Trojans were told that Paris had a right to take you from Greece in revenge for the Greeks taking my aunt, Princess Hesione, in the last war,’ Troilus continued. ‘And that war happened because Heracles attacked Troy in revenge after my grandfather, King Laomedon, refused to pay him for slaying a sea-monster, which Poseidon and Apollo had sent in revenge after my grandfather refused to pay them for building Troy in the first place. I think one revenge just leads to another, and the only way you can break the chain is by forgiving someone, somewhere along the line.’

‘Oh, I’m going to,’ said Helen. ‘I’m going to have mercy on Agamemnon, and ask Penthesilea to spare him, because he’s Menelaus’ brother. I’m just saying I don’t want to spare Agamemnon, but I choose to anyway.’

Penthesilea shrugged. ‘Please yourself. Okay, Achilles, off you go.’

So Achilles set off with the two heralds, followed at a discreet distance by Troilus and Cressida. A few stars were shining in the sky as they neared the first campfires of the Greek camp, and heard voices.

‘It was no way for a hero to go,’ said the voice of Odysseus. ‘Not struck down in fair fight by a mighty warrior with a sword of a spear, but shot in the foot by that cowardly fop Paris with a bow and arrow. You’ve got to avenge your father’s honour, the way I hope my boy, Telemachus, would avenge me if I was dead.’

‘I thought you said he was invulnerable,’ said another voice, after a pause. It was the voice of a young boy, and sounded dubious, as though the speaker didn’t want to believe that a great hero could be a liar, but knew when a story didn’t sound right.

‘Well, nearly invulnerable,’ said Odysseus. ‘All except the back of the heel. You see, when your grandmother dipped him in the Styx to make him invulnerable, he had to hold onto him by something. Don’t know why she didn’t just hang onto a lock of hair or something, but there you are.’

‘But how did Paris get at the back of his heel, anyway?’ persisted the boy. ‘He wasn’t running away, was he?’

‘What? Of course not! Your father wasn’t the kind of man to run away, no matter what danger threatened! He was a brave hero, and he’d expect the same of you.’

Achilles paused, a few feet from the glow of the campfire. He could see the speakers silhouetted against the glow of the fire now: the squat, broad-shouldered form of Odysseus sitting on a log, and the boy kneeling before him, polishing a breastplate as he listened. It was already gleaming in the firelight, but the boy clearly thought he could get it a bit shinier if he tried hard enough.

‘Anyway, Agamemnon told me an eagle dropped a tortoise on his head. Agamemnon didn’t say anything about my dad being invulnerable.’

‘No, well, the tortoise didn’t kill him, it just knocked him over,’ said Odysseus hastily. It caught him off balance, because he wasn’t expecting it – well, you wouldn’t, would you? – and sent the fleet-footed Achilles sprawling in the dust, and then, before he could pick himself up, that villain Paris shot him with a poisoned arrow in the foot and killed him. But he’d have wanted...’

‘ODYSSEUS!’ roared Achilles. ‘What in Hades’ name are you playing at? Why are you telling my son I’m dead?’

The boy jumped up, span round abruptly and peered into the gloom.

‘And you know something?’ continued Odysseus, as if nothing had happened, ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if your father’s ghost is still wandering around Troy, waiting for you to avenge his foul and unnatural murder.’

‘For Zeus’s sake, I haven’t been murdered!’ snapped Achilles. ‘For one thing, I’m not dead, but even if I was, then being killed in battle isn’t exactly unnatural for a hero, is it? Being hit by flying tortoises, well, that’d be unusual, but it isn’t strictly unnatural.’

‘Well, what would you rather I’d said?’ snapped Odysseus. ‘Did you want me to tell Neoptolemus here that you were a coward? That you deserted because you couldn’t take it any longer? What’s that supposed to achieve? And anyway, for all we knew, you might have been dead. Neoptolemus had grown up, gathered an army around him and sailed to Troy to look for you, so you obviously hadn’t gone home, so we thought you’d probably been killed somewhere along the way, what with all these islands prowled by sphinxes or minotaurs or giants, not to mention sea-serpents and sirens. So if you were dead anyway, it was only kind to let him think you’d died as a hero, not a fugitive.’

‘I’ve had enough of all this play-acting,’ growled Achilles. ‘Neoptolemus, there’s nothing heroic about us attacking Troy. We’ve spent ten years fighting the Trojans, when most of them hadn’t done anything to most of us...’

‘But they kidnapped a Greek queen!’ protested Neoptolemus. ‘Wronging one Greek is an outrage against all Greeks!’

‘Oh, shut up and listen to your father!’ snapped Achilles. ‘One: Helen wasn’t kidnapped; she wanted to go with Paris. Two: we were wasting our time attacking Troy, because Helen wasn’t even there. She got bored with Paris and left him before they were anywhere near Troy. She’s with my friends, just a couple of miles away, and she wants to come back to Menelaus tonight. Three: if Helen had been kidnapped and was at Troy, do you think we’d have made the world a better place by enslaving thousands of Trojan women and children and killing their husbands and fathers in revenge? Or by getting thousands of brave Greek soldiers killed in the process?’

‘Yeah, well, you’ve already had your chance to be brave,’ spat Neoptolemus. ‘If you can’t be bothered to fight for the honour of Greece, it’s my turn to take over.’

‘All right,’ retorted Achilles, ‘if you want to show how brave you are, come and fetch Helen on your own. She’s surrounded by savage Amazons and werewolves, but I’m sure you’re not frightened of them, are you?’

‘Why should I come with you? Why should I even believe you are my dad? It’s not as though I’ve seen him since I was a little kid, have I?’

‘He is,’ said a voice as cool as sea-water.

‘Granny, will you stop butting in?’ exclaimed Neoptolemus, just as Achilles was sighing, ‘For Hephaestus’ sake, mum, you’re so embarrassing!’ There was a moment’s pause, and then Thetis and her son and grandson all burst out laughing.

‘Achilles, darling,’ said Thetis, ‘can I suggest a slight change of plan? Why don’t you invite Agamemnon and Menelaus – and Neoptolemus of course – to dinner, and let me go back and ask your friends to be polite to them? I know it doesn’t sound as much fun as your version, but if you want to bring this war to a good end, then infuriating Agamemnon isn’t the best way to go about it. He’ll be nervous enough as it is, and I don’t think even Agamemnon would have the gall to tell Menelaus to his face that, even if he’s back with Helen, they have to destroy Troy anyway. This way, you should be able to persuade him to sign a peace treaty with Priam.’

‘Dad, you’re not really going to make them make peace, are you?’ wailed Neoptolemus. ‘Before I’ve had a chance to win glory in even one battle? Tomorrow morning was going to be my first chance.’

‘Are you sure it’s cooked?’ asked Briseis.

‘The outside is, and by the time we’ve eaten all that, the inside will be, too,’ said Patroclus. ‘Are my ox-roasts usually underdone?’

‘Well, no, but then they’re not usually still mooing,’ pointed out Briseis.

‘I think it’s the wind blowing,’ said Patroclus. ‘We’re just imagining things because we’re hungry. Come on, you saw me butcher the cow before we even lit the fire, and now it’s been cooking for hours. It smells cooked, anyway.’

‘It’s definitely done,’ said Achilles. ‘Cut some for Helen and Menelaus first, then Agamemnon.’

‘Oh, thanks but no thanks,’ said Helen hastily. ‘It does smell wonderful, but I – I’m on a diet. Does anyone want salad?’

‘Oh, yes please,’ said Menelaus, tasting a leaf cautiously. ‘By Hephaestus, that’s fantastic! Is this made from the herbs you’ve been growing on your island?’

‘That’s right. Mostly I’ve got magic herbs, but I brought a fair assortment that just taste nice. I spent a lot of time experimenting with recipes while Proteus was keeping me prisoner, so I’ve put a bit of weight on, but my cooking has improved beyond measure!’

‘You still look wonderful,’ said Menelaus. ‘And anyway, who would I be to complain if you didn’t? I don’t exactly look like a young Apollo myself these days. Do you know, they still call me “Menelaus the red-haired” even now? I hardly even have hair, and most of what’s left is white.’

‘Would anyone like some grilled fish?’ asked Briseis. A cold, wet nose bumped against her hand, and pushed something fluffy towards her. ‘Oh, hello, Cressida! Does anyone want any more rabbit? Penthesilea? Troilus?’

‘Thanks, but I’d quite like some beef now,’ said Troilus. Cressida growled reproachfully at him. Troilus reached out a hand to stroke her head, caressing her silky ears. ‘Oh, Cressida, I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings! These are delicious rabbits, and it’s very helpful of you to catch them as a starter, but Patroclus has been working all evening to get the main course ready. Here, have some of mine.’ He pulled a sizzling fragment off his slice of beef, and tossed it up in the air. The morsel glowed gold like a firework as it leapt up and fell back to earth, uttering another plaintive ‘Moo,’ as it landed. Cressida sniffed at it, growled again, and backed away.

‘You shouldn’t let her have her own way like that,’ said Agamemnon, who had overcome his initial caution after several cups of palm wine. ‘It’s bad for dogs to think they’re the pack leader, and even worse for wives. They always said back in Mycenae, where I come from: “A wife, a dog, and a walnut tree: The more you beat ‘em, the better they be.”’ And Menelaus, you’re just as bad, letting Helen turn you into a vegetarian! Now, me, I always made sure Clytemnestra knew who was boss, right from the outset: didn’t tell her all my plans, and when I did tell her what I was going to do, I didn’t let her talk me out of it.’

‘No, you didn’t, did you?’ snapped Helen. ‘Did you tell her you were going to kill her daughter?’

‘It wasn’t her daughter, it was mine,’ retorted Agamemnon. ‘You see, mothers aren’t actually related to their children, they’re just the field where the husband’s seed grows. You don’t ask a field if it minds you harvesting the wheat, do you?’

‘What a load of balls,’ said Penthesilea, accepting a second rib of beef from Patroclus. ‘You remember, Briseis, always keep your husband in the kitchen; it’s where they belong.’

‘We’d better make a truce with the Trojans tomorrow, and sign a peace treaty,’ said Helen. 

‘We’ll make peace when I say so!’ retorted Agamemnon. ‘Tell them we’ve got the real Helen back, but they’re to return all the treasure you took with you, when you ran off with Paris in the first place, and make them pay tribute to us.’

‘I think I ought to give them the treasure as a present, to make up for all the trouble I’ve caused,’ said Helen. ‘I just wish I had something more to give them. Maybe they’d like cuttings of some of my herbs, and Oenone might like my tapestry to hang up in Paris’s house.’

‘Why should we give them presents?’ exclaimed Agamemnon. ‘That’ll just make us look weak.’

‘No, it won’t. Paris told me there’s a Trojan proverb: “Revere Greeks bearing gifts.” Isn’t that right, Calchas?’

‘Well, actually, what we usually say is “Fear Greeks bearing gifts,”’ admitted Calchas, ‘but it means the same thing, really. Fear is reverence. After all, we worship the gods because we’re afraid of what they can do to us, don’t we?’

‘I don’t think it is the same thing,’ said Troilus. ‘Or reverence is a different sort of fear. I mean, when I first saw Cressida, I was too shy to talk to her because I thought she was too wonderful for me to have any right to come near her, but it wasn’t as if I thought she was going to kill me or anything. I didn’t know she was a werewolf, then. But if someone had told me, “There’s a werewolf living in Troy,” and I hadn’t known the werewolf was someone I loved, I’d have been frightened and disgusted at the idea of a werewolf, and wanted to kill it, but I wouldn’t have felt any reverence for it. But as it is, I love Cressida and I trust her, so I’m not frightened of her, and she doesn’t have to be frightened of me. Yes, there’s a good girl, who’s a good wolf, then,’ he added, stroking the wolf’s thick fur. ‘And you know something, Cressida? It’s only two days till my birthday. In two days, I’ll be twenty and we can get married.’ Cressida wagged her tail.


	18. Chapter 18

Now, it could all have ended there, and the Trojan War might have had a happy ending. It nearly did end there; or, to be more precise, it nearly ended the next morning, when Agamemnon, Menelaus, Priam, Hector, Paris, Helen, and Oenone signed a peace treaty, and the assembled Greek and Asian armies spent the rest of the day sacrificing to all the gods, celebrating, and holding sports contests. 

But at some time late the following night, when the Trojans were asleep after the celebrations, a group of Greeks attacked them, and set fire to the city. They couldn’t agree afterwards on whose idea it was. Some said it was because Neoptolemus was angry at having missed his chance to win glory in battle, and others said that Agamemnon was determined to take revenge because Pandarus had attempted to assassinate Menelaus during the truce. Briseis suspected that it had more to do with the Sun-god wanting revenge on the people who had stolen his cattle. But several of those who had known Agamemnon best whispered that he had wanted to destroy Troy for years because King Priam was blocking trade routes, and that he had just used Paris’s affair with Helen as a convenient excuse to declare war. 

All I know is that fighting broke out, and that many people died: Achilles and Patroclus; Thersites, and valiant Penthesilea; King Priam, and Hector and Paris and the rest of his sons, and even Hector’s baby son Astyanax. Agamemnon took Cassandra to be his slave, but his wife Clytemnestra murdered both of them when they arrived back in Mycenae, because she was still furious with Agamemnon for killing Iphigenia. 

It was all a horrible, bloodthirsty mess, and only a few people escaped alive. Oenone survived, of course, because she was immortal, and when she saw that Paris was dead, she flew back to Mount Ida and lived with her fellow nymphs, and as far as I know she never had an affair with another mortal man. 

But a great many people were killed in the destruction of Troy, not to mention the thousands of soldiers who had been killed in the ten years of war, like Pandarus. They stayed dead for a very long time – nearly a thousand years – and it was a miserable time for them. In those days, most people didn’t go to Heaven when they died. A few great heroes like Heracles went there, but most people went down to the grave, Hades’ realm, the Underworld. It wasn’t exactly Hell, but it was grey, and dreary, and wretched.

They wouldn’t all have agreed on what was the worst thing about being dead. For Hector, the worst thing was that he had failed to save his city, or even to save the lives of his family. For Penthesilea, the worst thing was that she couldn’t treat being dead as a part of patriarchal oppression to be overthrown, because everyone, male and female, rich and poor, was perfectly equal in death, and equally dead. For Pandarus, the worst thing was that his death-wound had cut off his tongue, so that he was mute, and so he couldn’t make up some lie to trick Hades into letting him go, and he couldn’t pass the time in singing songs and telling stories to cheer the other dead up, and he couldn’t even go round giving everyone advice to avoid admitting to himself that he hadn’t the faintest idea what to do. So, because he had to be silent, he was left alone with his thoughts, and they weren’t very good company. 

But for Achilles, the worst thing was just being dead, and never seeing the sunlight or smelling food cooking or treading on fresh, dewy grass. And he thought a hundred times a day, except that there were no days in the Underworld, that it would have been far better to be working on a zero-hours contract on earth, never sure if he could find work and food from one day to the next, than king of all the dead men. Periodically some newly-arrived ghost would come and tell Achilles how well his son and his grandchildren and great-grandchildren were doing, and that would cheer him up for a little while, but soon he’d remember that his descendants would die too, and then he’d be sadder than ever.

Troilus had gone out to search for Cressida when the fighting broke out, but he’d been held up by fighting a Greek soldier in a narrow alleyway, and then got lost in the smoke. And then someone took him by the hand, and said, ‘Come on; this way,’ and led him out of the city. The streets were blocked with rubble and burning timber, so they flew over them because it was easier than climbing, and when they were clear of the smoke and confusion, Troilus saw that the man who had helped him out was Hermes, the messenger of the gods, whose job it was to guide the dead to their place.

Troilus blinked, and said, ‘I’m dead, aren’t I?’ and Hermes laughed and said, ‘You’ve just been born! The adventure’s just starting! You’ve broken out of your cocoon, and now you’re ready to fly!’

‘No, I’m not,’ said Troilus. ‘I’m just another dead mortal, and I came out of earth and now I’m supposed to go under the earth. I haven’t done anything great and heroic, to deserve to ascend to the heavens.’

Hermes stared at him in astonishment: ‘What do you mean, “ascend to the heavens”? You were in the heavens all along! You’ve been living on a planet your entire life, haven’t you?’

‘No, I haven’t. I’ve always lived on Earth, under the moon.’

Hermes smiled, and said, ‘Yes, she’s a dear moon, isn’t she? Earth’s a lucky planet, to have such a faithful friend. Some of the other planets have lots of moons, but they’ll never smile as kindly as yours.’

‘No, no, sir, you don’t understand,’ said Troilus. ‘Earth isn’t a planet, any more than I’m a god. She’s just a little ball of clay wrapped in sea. I mean, I know the Earth-Mother is a goddess, but she isn’t shiny like you and the sun and moon and Ares and Aphrodite and all the other planets who dance in the heavens, is she?’

‘What? Haven’t you ever seen the blue-green of the sea, or the green of young grass? Or the gold of a cornfield ready for harvest, scattered with blood-red poppies? Haven’t you noticed pink sunrises, and purple and orange sunsets, or the way the world looks silvery in the moonlight? Haven’t you seen the clouds, pink or pearl-coloured or fluffy white in a blue sky?’

‘I suppose so,’ said Troilus dubiously. ‘But it isn’t really the Earth that’s shining, is it? So she isn’t a proper planet. She just catches the sunlight and then throws it on.’

‘Of course she does! That’s what being a planet means. If I looked like a shining star to you when you were on Earth, so that you called me “the evening star” when you saw me at twilight and “the morning star” when you saw me at dawn, it was only because I was throwing my portion of sunlight to you, just as the moon does. It’s just that I was a small planet quite a long way away, so I looked like a bright spark in the sky to you, just as the great stars a very, very long way away look like bright sparks in the sky.’

Troilus wasn’t sure what to say to that, except, ‘Oh. Uh – well, thanks for the sunlight, it was – very generous of you.’

Hermes laughed again. ‘Oh, nonsense, I can spare it! You see, as I dance closest to the sun, I’ve got plenty of it to share. Come on up, and I’ll show you.’

So he took Troilus up, away from the Earth and the dark night, to where it was warm and bright and golden. Troilus could see two boys, a few years younger than he was, kicking a football back and forth, and both the boys and even the football were shining with the golden light of the sun, so that they looked almost as if they were on fire themselves. When they saw Troilus coming, the taller one kicked the ball to him, and Troilus kicked it to Hermes, who kicked it to the other boy, and the four of them played together for a while. Troilus felt as though he was a child again, and the war with the Greeks had never happened, and everything since then had just been a dream. In the end, he asked, ‘Is this Heaven?’

The boy who’d kicked the ball to him said, ‘It’s the First Heaven. My name’s Phaeton, by the way, and this is Icarus. What’s yours?’

‘Well, I’m Troilus – one of King Priam’s sons. Are you really the son of Helios, the sun-god?’

‘Yeah, that’s me,’ said Phaeton. ‘I’m the idiot who insisted on borrowing his dad’s chariot to fly it over the school, so that all the other kids in my class could see that I really was the son of Helios and wasn’t just making it up. And because I was showing off, I flew way too low to make sure they could all see me, just when Icarus and his dad were escaping from prison by flying away with wings made of wax...’

‘Yeah, well, I was showing off, too,’ admitted Icarus. ‘It was as much my fault as Phaeton’s, wanting to see just how near the sun-chariot I could fly, and of course we crashed. Next thing we knew, we were both up here.’

‘But doesn’t it scare you?’ asked Troilus. ‘Being near the thing that killed you?’

Icarus laughed, and said, ‘No, it can’t hurt us now, can it? Now we know we’re not brilliant ourselves, we can enjoy just reflecting the sun’s glory – and that really is brilliant! D’you want to come and stay with us?’

‘I suppose I might. I used not to like the sun, because when the sun rose it meant I had to leave my girlfriend’s house and go back to mine. There was a poem we used to have, back in Troy...’ The boys sniggered at all this talk about girlfriends and poetry. Troilus ignored them, and recited the poem, anyway:

‘Busy old fool, unruly Sun,

Why dost thou thus

Through windows, and through curtains, call on us?

Must to thy motions lovers’ seasons run?

Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide

Late schoolboys and sour ‘prentices;

Go tell court-huntsmen that the king will ride;

Call country ants to harvest-offices!

Love, all alike, no season knows, nor clime,

Nor hours, days, weeks, which are the rags of time.’

Icarus laughed, and called, ‘Oooh, you’ve got a girlfriend?’ Phaeton rolled his eyes and said, ‘Just ignore him, he’s so immature!’ and Icarus threw the ball of sunlight at Phaeton and knocked him over, and they began wrestling with each other, play-fighting as if they were rolling on the ground and not in space. It all reminded Troilus of when he was a little boy and thought anyone who fancied girls was silly. He almost wanted to stay with Phaeton and Icarus, and become a child like them again, but he could hear a distant song, far beyond the most distant stars, calling:

‘Hail the Heaven-born Prince of Peace,

Hail the Sun of righteousness,

Light and life to all he brings,

Risen with healing in his wings.’

The boys didn’t seem to notice the song, but Troilus could hear it quite clearly, and so could Hermes. He nodded to Troilus and said, ‘I think you belong further out. Come on, let’s find where you belong.’

So they travelled out, away from the First Heaven which was Hermes’ own realm, and into the Second Heaven, where Aphrodite and her son Eros reigned. There was the lady Eurydice, and her husband, Orpheus the wonderful singer, Sir Orfeo who lovéd the glee of harping, and who had loved Eurydice so much that, when she died, Orpheus had gone down to the Underworld to plead with Hades to release her. And there, too, was King Admetus, who had been destined to die young unless a friend was willing to die in his place, and his wife, Queen Alcestis, who had loved Admetus so much that she had died for him, but their friend Heracles had wrestled Death to the ground and brought Alcestis back to life again.

‘Is Cressida down in the Underworld?’ asked Troilus. ‘Because I don’t mind going down there instead of her, so that she can come up to the heavens. Or if she can’t come up here, I’ll go down there to be with her. I’ll stay with her forever.’

Hermes smiled, and shook his head. ‘You don’t need to worry about that just yet. Your love is still alive, under the orbit of the moon. She and Briseis are escaping with Aeneas and a crowd of other refugees, and Aphrodite herself, the goddess of this sphere, is protecting them, and guiding them to found a Trojan colony overseas.’

‘That’s what Pandarus always said we needed to do! Only now Pandarus isn’t alive any more, and neither am I. So – uh – next time you see Aphrodite, can you ask her to be especially careful to protect Cressida?’

Hermes nodded. ‘I promise we’ll look after Cressida, and her baby.’

‘Baby?’

‘That’s right: you’ve got a daughter. A little girl called Sylvia, who’ll be born in about seven months, and she’s the ancestor of a long line of werewolves who protected Rome in its time of need. I’m afraid your family’s going to have its ups and downs over the centuries, though – you won’t always be nobility. In fact, your great-great-great-granddaughter, Acca Larentia, was a shepherd’s wife – and his sheepdog! – but, for all that, she was the foster-mother of Romulus and Remus, who built Rome.’

Troilus was too stunned by all this news that all he could think of to say was ‘Where is Rome? I mean, when was it, or where’s it going to be, or something?’

‘I wouldn’t worry about when, if I were you,’ said Hermes. ‘Time’s a bit different out here. But as for where, you’ll see Italy shortly.’

So Troilus let Hermes lead him out from the sphere of Aphrodite. And as they left, he could hear, more clearly than before, the star-song singing to him:

‘Sing O my love, O my love, my love, my love,

This have I done for my true love.’

As Hermes and Troilus flew on towards the sound, they passed into the Third Heaven, the realm of the Earth-Mother. Here, they were flying close enough Earth for Troilus to see her in the sky: a bright jewel of green continents and blue sea and white polar ice-caps, all wrapped in fluffy wisps of cloud. Troilus gazed back at his planet, and he saw how she was spinning round and round, so that the dawning sunlight was flooding over more places every moment as they turned to face the sun. And he felt as though his heart would break with wonder and joy and sorrow at once, because it was all so beautiful and because he’d never even realised how beautiful his home world was until he’d left her. And then he began to laugh instead, and he shouted, ‘Of course! Earth is Cinderella, but now she’s gone to the ball! She’s dancing and whirling round because she is a ball! Whoever heard of a ball that wasn’t meant for throwing? But this one’s the brightest, most beautiful ball of all!’

‘You should have seen her when she was younger,’ said a voice behind him. ‘Those yellow patches of desert were lush green forests, when God put my wife and me in a garden in the middle of it all.’

Troilus turned round, and saw an old man sitting behind him, dressed in deer-skins. He seemed so ancient that Troilus asked nervously, ‘Which god was that, sir? Was it Zeus, or – or were you alive before Zeus was born, when Cronos was ruling?’

The old man chuckled kindly. ‘Bless you, this wasn’t one of the gods, this was God! You know: the one who made the Sky-Father and the Earth-Mother, and the sea and the clouds and the plants and fish and animals, and then made my wife and me and told us to look after it.’

‘But what was his name, this god-before-the-Sky-Father-or-the-Earth-Mother? Or is it a name you’re not allowed to say?’

The old man considered for several minutes, and at last shrugged. ‘Well, to tell you the truth, son, I’m not sure I ever caught his name. You see, when there was just him and me and the wife, and we were all good friends, we just called each other God and Man and Woman. Don’t need names when there’s only three of you, do you? And then after we’d quarrelled, we didn’t talk to God more than we could avoid, and didn’t often talk about him, either. All I know is, when the wife and I loved God and loved each other and loved the earth, we were all happy, and once we’d quarrelled, we were all miserable, God most of all. He said there was no point in him coming to Earth to visit us if we were just going to avoid him as if he was some hideous monster. But he said one day, he’d find a way to visit not as a hideous monster, so people wouldn’t run away from him. I hope he does. I hope he finds some way for God and people to be friends again.’

‘I hope so, too,’ said Troilus politely. He couldn’t quite imagine what it would be like being friends with a god who was more ancient than the Sky-Father and more powerful than Zeus. But in the distance he could hear the star-song again:

‘Sacred infant, all-divine,

What a tender love was thine,

To descend from highest bliss

Into such a world as this!’


	19. Chapter 19

When they were a long way from the old man, Troilus asked Hermes quietly, ‘Was it true, what he was saying? Was there another god before the Sky-Father?’

Hermes nodded. ‘That’s right: the great God who made everything, people and gods alike.’

‘But what is his name? What does he look like? Did he ever come to visit Earth again? Does he disguise himself as a man or a woman, or a bull or a horse or a swan? Is he married? Does he have any children?’

But Hermes didn’t answer, and instead, he led Troilus into the Fourth Heaven, the realm of Ares, where the brave warriors live. Here he saw two Babylonian men, wrestling together like the children he’d seen in the First Heaven, although they were big, strong men. As they approached, one of them, slightly the taller of the two, managed to lift the other above his head. The other, who was slightly broader at the shoulders and very hairy all over his body, said, ‘Okay, Gilgamesh, you win – this time!’ So Gilgamesh set him down again, both of them laughing and panting for breath like happy dogs playing an exciting game.

Troilus said wonderingly, ‘I’ve heard of you. A friend of mine was always telling me of the exploits of Gilgamesh and Enkidu.’

Enkidu grinned. ‘What was your favourite part? About how we journeyed to the forest of cedars and slew the monster Humbaba? Or about how Aphrodite sent the Bull of Heaven to ravage the city of Uruk when Gilgamesh refused to marry her, and how we slew the Bull and hung its horns on the wall?’

‘I loved those stories,’ said Troilus. ‘But my friend Achilles’ favourite part was about how Gilgamesh grieved for you when Aphrodite struck you dead, and about how he went away searching for the secret of immortality.’

Gilgamesh nodded. ‘That was the hardest and loneliest quest I ever made. But I thought it would be worth it, when at last I was on the boat just over the place where the Tree of Life grew submerged. I stripped off my clothes, tied weights to my feet and dived down, down, to where the water was cold and black and the blood was pounding in my ears, and I could do nothing but grope in the darkness for the prickly flower. But at last I picked it, even though its thorns cut my hands, and I loosed the weights from my feet and swam up until there was warmth and light surrounding me, and at last I scrambled back into the boat with the crimson flower in my hands. And if only the snake hadn’t stolen it, I could have shared it with all the people of Uruk, so that they could all be young and strong forever.’

‘Achilles wanted to quest for that flower, too. But we didn’t even know where to start looking.’

‘Some day, a hero will bring it back,’ said Gilgamesh firmly. ‘But he’ll have to be a far greater hero than I ever was, and with more god in him. I was the son of a goddess, and so was Achilles, but we were born to mortal fathers and we had to die as mortals. I suppose only a hero who was completely a god could succeed in a quest like that – and yet, only a mortal could understand the need for it.’

Hermes nodded to Troilus that it was time to move on, and Troilus could hear the star-song calling again:

‘Thus Gabriel sang, and straight around

The heavenly armies throng;

They tune their harps to lofty sound,

And thus conclude the song...’

As they flew on into the Fifth Heaven, the realm of Zeus, Troilus repeated his question: ‘Does the Great God you talked about ever have affairs with humans? I know Aphrodite has had lots of human boyfriends, and Zeus keeps having human lovers…’

Hermes looked embarrassed. ‘Well – we’re not like the Great God,’ he mumbled. ‘We were made able to disguise ourselves as humans so that we could talk to humans without frightening them, but, well, when you put on a human body with human glands and hormones and stuff, you can’t help noticing that humans are really gorgeous. We’re not really supposed to have affairs with them, but then, Aphrodite’s never had much respect for rules. She treats her boyfriends very badly when she gets tired of them – I don’t blame Gilgamesh for giving her the brush-off – but then, of course, she’s even worse to people who refuse to be her boyfriends. The Great God doesn’t approve.’

‘But doesn’t the Great God understand? Hasn’t he ever been in love himself?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Hermes, ‘but I suppose he’s always in love with everyone. I don’t really understand it, and I’m sure Aphrodite wouldn’t, but it isn’t like fancying someone, then losing interest and fancying someone else. But maybe humans understand things like this more than we do – since you first met Cressida, you’ve always loved her, haven’t you? Even when you thought she wasn’t going to come back from the Greeks’ camp and you’d never see her again?’

‘Of course! Even if she’d gone off with some Greek hero and forgotten all about me, I couldn’t un-love her for a quarter of a day!’

‘Well,’ said Hermes, ‘as far as I can understand, that’s how the Great God feels about every creature who ever lived – gods and humans and beasts, not to mention the in-between creatures like werewolves and centaurs. He loved us all, even before he’d created us, and he wishes we would love him.’

‘So he’s an unrequited lover, like Pandarus,’ said Troilus, wonderingly. ‘Poor God! He’s ruling over the universe, but all the time he’s desperately lonely and sick with love for people who don’t even know he exists. But then, I suppose if he wants us all to be his lovers, he must be jealous when we fall in love with each other.’

‘No, it’s not like that!’ said Hermes impatiently. ‘I can’t make you understand properly, not in the Realm of Zeus. Come on up to the Sixth Heaven, the Realm of Cronos, where philosophers belong, and I’ll try to explain it to you there.’

So they flew on, and, as they did, they could hear the star-song:

‘Joy to the world! The Lord is come,

Let earth receive her king.

Let every heart prepare him room,

And heaven and nature sing.’

‘Don’t you remember that old man we met back in the Third Heaven?’ asked Hermes, as they passed onto the Sixth Heaven. ‘The Great God created him and his wife so that they could love each other, and love God, and have children and love their children, and love their animals. Didn’t you have different kinds of love for Cressida, for your friends, your brothers, your parents, and your chariot-horses?’

‘I suppose I did,’ said Troilus. ‘And I loved different friends and different brothers in different ways, so that I loved Hector in a different way from the way I loved Deiphobus, but it was still brother-love, and I loved Pandarus in a different way from the way I loved Achilles, but it was still friend-love. And I loved Cressida in different ways when I was too shy to talk to her, and when we were having a secret affair, and when I thought I wasn’t going to see her again, and when we were living together and I thought we could get married and live together forever. But – well, which way does the Great God love us? Like a friend, or like a father or mother, or a brother, or a lover?’

‘Is light more like red or green or blue or purple?’ asked Hermes.

‘You mean the Great God’s love isn’t like any human love?’ said Troilus, crestfallen. ‘Then why do you call it love at all?’

‘No, no – I mean it’s like all the loves you’ve experienced, and some you haven’t,’ said Hermes. ‘White light is made of all the different colours – the ones you humans can see, from red to violet, and the ones you can’t, like infra-red and ultra-violet. When it shines on a poppy, the flower keeps all the other colours and only shines the red light back at you, so you call it ‘a red flower’. And when it shines on grass or leaves, they keep all the other colours and reflect green back at you, so you call it ‘green grass’. The sun’s light is the same, but I reflect different aspects of it from Aphrodite or the Earth-Mother or Mars.’

‘So do you mean the Great God loves us differently because we’re different objects?’ asked Troilus. ‘Or are we different objects because he loves us in different ways?’

‘No, you’re not listening,’ said Hermes. ‘The Great God loves us all the same, just as the sun shines the same light on everything, but everyone reflects God’s love in a slightly different way. And when the divine light shines through you, instead of just being reflected off you, then you shine a slightly different light on each person you meet – the same way that sunlight shining through a fountain splits up into all the colours of the rainbow. Or at least, that’s as well as I can explain it here. We’ll have to go on further if you want to understand more.’

By now the star-song was singing again:

‘Sages, leave your contemplations;

Brighter visions beam afar.

Seek the great desire of nations;

Ye have seen his natal star.’

‘I do want to understand more,’ said Troilus, as they flew into the Seventh Heaven, the realm of the Sky-Father. ‘Were you saying the Great God loves us like a father and a mother, as well as like a friend and a brother and a lover?’

‘And like a gardener and a horse-trainer and an artist and anything else you can name,’ said Hermes. ‘But it’s best for all of us – humans and gods – to think of him as the Great Father. After all, he made us before our biological fathers and mothers knew we’d been conceived – and he planned us long before Zeus or King Priam were born!’

‘But – but is he anyone’s father in the ordinary sense?’ asked Troilus. ‘Has he fathered any children the way King Priam was my father, and that Zeus was your father and Cronos was Zeus’s father and the Sky-Father was Cronos’s father?’

Hermes was silent.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Troilus uncomfortably. ‘That was a stupid question, wasn’t it? It’s almost blasphemy…’

‘No, not at all,’ said Hermes. ‘I was just amazed that you’d guessed the secret. The Great Father has a Son of his own – he’s always had him, for an eternity before they created the Sky-Father and the Earth-Mother. So you didn’t need to feel sorry for God and think he must be lonely. The Father and the Son have always loved each other, before the beginning of time.’

‘Then he must have had a wife, as well,’ said Troilus. ‘Men can’t have babies.’

‘Men can’t,’ said Hermes. ‘And I don’t think any of the ways we lesser gods have been born – Cronos chopping bits off the Sky-Father so that his blood fell into the sea and grew into Aphrodite, and that sort of thing – I’m quite certain that wasn’t how the Great Son came to be.’

‘Is it true that gods always fight their fathers?’ asked Troilus. ‘I mean, maybe we’ve misunderstood, but on Earth they always said that Cronos rebelled against the Sky-Father and became king in his place, and then he was frightened that his own children would overthrow him too, so he ate them, until Zeus managed to escape, and then he chained Cronos up and became king, and now he’s always worrying in case one of his children overthrows him. Achilles’ mum said that was why Zeus had told her to marry a mortal, because he’d wanted to marry her himself but he was worried that if he did, she might have a child who was stronger than Zeus. But is it really like that?’

‘It’s like that in my family,’ said Hermes, ‘but that’s not because we’re gods, it’s because we’re a dysfunctional family, and we’ve never learned to be good sons or good parents. But there are plenty of human families who are nearly as messed-up – look at Lycaon, and what his crime did to his children and his granddaughter. But it isn’t like that with the Great Father and the Great Son. When you go on to the Eighth Heaven, beyond the realm of the Sky-Father and beyond this universe, you’ll understand.’

‘When I go on?’ repeated Troilus. ‘Aren’t you coming?’

‘No, you’ll be all right on your own now,’ said Hermes. ‘I’ve got to look after my own realm – not to mention all the work I’ve got to do on Earth, miraculously rescuing weary travellers, appearing on people’s doorsteps disguised as a tramp, carrying messages for Zeus – it’s a god’s life, running errands in the hot sun all day! Anyway, you can find your own way from here. Just follow the music, and you can’t go wrong. See you later.’

And with that he vanished back to the First Heaven, as fast as the speed of thought, and Troilus was left alone, with only the song singing:

‘Lo, within a manger lies

He who built the starry skies;

He who, throned in height sublime,

Sits amid the cherubim.’


	20. Chapter 20

So Troilus flew on, further and further from everything he knew. He had never realised how much of the Sky-Father’s realm there was: far more than he had ever seen when he’d looked up at the stars, even on the clearest, starriest moonless night. Even in the little gaggle of planets surrounding one little golden star called the Sun, he discovered that, after passing the Sky-Father’s own planet, there was a planet dedicated to Poseidon, followed by a rather smaller one dedicated to Hades.

Troilus wondered why Hades, if he had a whole planet of his own, was interested in keeping most of the dead of the Earth imprisoned inside Earth, and, for that matter, why so many gods kept rushing around intervening in the lives of so many living people on Earth, and trying to change the results of earthly wars. Why had Poseidon or Ares or Aphrodite cared about whether one city in Turkey was flattened or not, when the whole of Earth was such a tiny speck of dust that you couldn’t even see her from where Poseidon was? It was as if kings were fighting each other over whether a nest of red ants was right or wrong to invade a nest of black ants! Troilus began to shake with laughter, not caring that in space, no-one can hear you laugh.

But then he remembered that a lot of the dead on that speck of dust were his friends, and so were a lot of those who were either refugees, or prisoners waiting to be given as slaves to the Greek conquerors, or crying for their dead husbands or wives or parents or children. And now he began to feel ashamed of laughing just because he, Troilus, was happy to be well out of it, when those he loved were still down there. It didn’t matter that Troy was fallen – Troy was just a city, and there were plenty more cities – but it mattered terribly that Cressida was a refugee, and that Cassandra was a slave, and that Aeneas’s little boy would have to grow up without a mother, and that Achilles and Hector and so many others were wretched ghosts in the land of the dead. Cities didn’t matter, but they were part of a person, and it had to matter a lot if a person was miserable.

But then, he thought, what if his friends weren’t in the Underworld at all? After all, how could the dead be both under earth _and_ ‘in Hades’ realm’, when Hades’ planet was beyond the Sky-Father’s planet? What if all the dead ascended to the stars, and not just the few whose stars could be seen from Earth? Troilus decided to keep a sharp look-out for anyone he recognised as he dived on through space. 

And so he swam on through galaxy after galaxy, past great starry fish and crabs and dolphins and sea-serpents, bears and lions and flying horses and two centaurs, one menacingly waving a bow and arrow. He saw a few great heroes, including Queen Helen’s brothers Castor and Pollux, but nobody he’d known on Earth. And before long he was swimming through galaxies made up of stars so far from Earth that nobody on Earth had ever seen them, and the heroes who had ascended to the heavens were the bravest or wisest heroes of alien planets, who looked stranger than even the most bizarre creatures on Earth. 

Troilus wasn’t sure how long he had been swimming. There were no days and nights, and he couldn’t feel tired or hungry or thirsty, only interested and curious to see what he might find next. It might have been only a few hours since he left Earth, or it might have been a thousand years, or a billion. For all he knew, Earth herself might have been burned up by now, and there might be no human beings left there. He wondered whether the gods of the other planets around the Sun would go on visiting Earth when there were no humans left to believe in them, or whether they would go back to their own planets.

Then, as though he’d just woken from a dream, he found himself lying in a garden. It was an orchard full of all kinds of fruit-trees, sloping gently down to a river, with more trees growing on the far side. There was a wooden footbridge across the river, and a young man sitting on the middle of the bridge, idly dangling a rod and line, as if he had all the time in the world, which was probably true.

Troilus wasn’t sure what time it was: either the time of day, or the time of year. It felt like a summer morning, but some of the trees in the orchard were covered in blossom, while others were full of ripe cherries, and still others bore ripe apples or pears or nuts. Some showed the first pale green shoots of spring, some were covered in green leaves, and others’ leaves were golden or copper or scarlet or crimson, as though all the seasons had come at once.

‘Hi, Troilus,’ called the man on the bridge. ‘Come over here – quietly, you don’t want to disturb the fish.’

So Troilus padded over to the bridge, where the fisherman was balancing his rod and line with one hand, and, in the palm of the other, rolling a little ball about the size of a hazelnut. It was mostly black, with little glints of light like stars here and there.

‘It’s good to have you here, Troilus,’ said the fisherman. ‘Want a sardine sandwich? I’ve got some in my bag – no, in the other box; that one’s mealworms.’

‘Thank you,’ said Troilus, taking a sandwich, ‘but how did you know who I am?’

‘I’ve always known you,’ said the young fisherman. ‘I knew you when you were a little boy clearing his toys off the bedroom floor so that they could put a mattress down for a stranger to share your room. I knew you before the universe was made. You were always part of the plan, and I’ve always looked forward to inviting you to stay here.’

‘But where is _here_?’ asked Troilus. ‘I dreamed that I died and flew off Earth and through the universe, but I suppose someone must have carried me to the garden while I was asleep. I really don’t know where I am.’

‘You’re where you belong,’ said the fisherman, who was now packing up his tackle and preparing to head off across the bridge, still holding the little starry marble in his left hand. ‘I’ve got your room all ready for you, in my dad’s house. Come and follow me, and I’ll show you. My dad’s been looking forward to seeing you, too. He’d really like to adopt you – you see, I’m an only child at the moment, and I’d love to have some brothers and sisters.’

‘Well – it’s very kind of you,’ said Troilus uncertainly, because he had guessed by now that the fisherman and his father must be gods – perhaps even the Great Father and Son that Hermes had talked about – and it wasn’t a good idea to offend gods. ‘But – it’s just that – I’ve got a family back on Earth and – well, if anyone deserves to be adopted by a god, it’s my brother Hector, and his wife and their little boy. I mean, I’m grateful, honestly, but it isn’t really fair if you choose me instead of Hector.’

‘Who said anything about _instead of_?’ cried the fisherman. ‘You’re all welcome here – every creature, living and dead. There’s more than enough room, believe me!’ 

‘But they don’t know that, so they don’t know how to come here,’ said Troilus. ‘Couldn’t you, please, let me go back to Earth to tell them? I’ll come back here as soon as I can, I promise.’

‘You can never go back to Earth, now,’ said the fisherman. ‘Do you see this ball?’

‘I saw you playing with it earlier,’ said Troilus. ‘What is it?’

‘It’s the universe,’ said the fisherman. ‘While you were swimming through it, you realised how tiny Earth was compared to the universe – though any astronomer on Earth could have told you that in any case. But compared to where we are, the universe itself is only a little ball the size of a hazelnut. You’ve outgrown it, my brother. You had to outgrow it, to be big enough to come here and meet my dad and me.’

‘I suppose I did,’ said Troilus. ‘But I thought – I mean, I met an old man who said you or your dad or someone used to come to Earth to visit him and his wife when he was young.’

‘Yes,’ said the fisherman. ‘We have to make ourselves very small to squeeze in, especially if we want to be small enough not to terrify people. I’m going back there, soon.’

‘How soon? Soon enough to see Cressida, and bring her back up here?’

‘Very soon: less than a thousand years, now. Soon enough to see Cressida, and your parents and all your brothers and sisters, and Achilles, and Pandarus, and every other friend you’ve loved and lost.’

‘But they’re dead,’ said Troilus.

‘I know,’ said the fisherman. ‘That’s why I’ll have to become a mortal, so that I can die, and go to visit everyone who’s dead, and rescue them. You met Admetus and Alcestis on your way here, didn’t you? And you might have seen Heracles, who wrestled Death for Alcestis and brought her back alive.’

‘You’re going to die? But I thought gods only _pretended_ to be mortals?’

‘That’s true when we just go to visit for a few hours,’ said the fisherman. ‘But this time I’m going to live a whole mortal life: turn myself into an embryo who grows into a baby who grows into a man, so that I can be killed, and become something tinier and weaker than an embryo: a ghost in the Underworld. That’s the only way I can be strong enough to do what Alcestis did _and_ what Heracles did: to die to save people from Death, and then to defeat Death and return to life.’

‘I see,’ said Troilus. ‘But why am I here already, if that hasn’t happened yet? And if I can come up here now, why can’t my friends?’

‘Do you think they’d want to?’ asked the fisherman.

‘Of course! Who wouldn’t want to be in this place?’

‘Well,’ said the fisherman, ‘suppose you told Achilles that there was a country where it was better to be humble and gentle than proud and vengeful. What do you think he’d say about a place like that?’

‘I suppose he’d say it sounded like a place for slaves, not heroes,’ said Troilus.

‘And if you told Pandarus that there was a place where people were open about loving each other, and there were no seductions or secret love affairs or heartbroken partings?’

Troilus laughed. ‘I expect he’d say it sounded very humdrum and unromantic, and where would the poetry be if lovers didn’t have to slip away at dawn? Did I think poems like _The Sun Rising_ would write themselves? But then, I suppose he’d only say that because he was afraid that nobody would love _him_.’

‘Yes,’ said the fisherman, ‘I think he would. But if he saw you coming out to meet him and welcome him, I know he’d trust you.’

‘He would, wouldn’t he?’ said Troilus. ‘And it’s only fair, isn’t it? I mean, he led Cressida and me to the best happiness we could have on Earth, but now I’m going to be the one welcoming him into the greatest joy ever! But then, can’t I come down into the Underworld with you?’

‘No, that wouldn’t work,’ said the fisherman. ‘But you’ll trust me, won’t you? After all, if you could trust Pandarus to be your messenger to Cressida, you can certainly trust me to be your messenger to both of them, can’t you?’

‘Yes,’ said Troilus. ‘I trust you.’

And that is as much of the story as the ancient manuscripts tell. Probably nobody on Earth could imagine the things Troilus experienced next. But we can be sure that, around a thousand years later, when a great crowd of prisoners were released from the Underworld and arrived in Paradise, Troilus was there at once, running over the fields of Paradise to greet all his old friends.


End file.
